


Nobody does it better

by eretria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-03-25
Updated: 2010-03-25
Packaged: 2017-10-08 07:45:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/74304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which everyone loves Rodney, Vala is a stowaway, John is smart, Sam is flummoxed, Daniel is jealous, Ronon and Teyla realise all Earth people are peculiar, and Elizabeth is reminded that guests are like fish. (Pegasus Project based teamfic with a side-dish of John/Vala and Sam/Rodney - Prequel to "A question of perspective Or  Reality Doesn't Always Come in Second to Fantasy")</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nobody does it better

The reassuring ripple of the stargate tinted the control room in a cool silver blue. Cool. Elizabeth closed her eyes briefly and prayed for that. Cool. Calm. Anything that would stop her from just yelling at the guest standing next to her on the balcony. She liked Cameron Mitchell. Really, she did. He reminded her of John in a way, though was a lot less boyish and had tiny lines around his eyes that spoke of pain endured and battles fought. She was glad, sometimes, that John never gave her the chance to look that deep. But, nevertheless, right now, despite professionally and personally liking Mitchell, all she wanted to do was sew his damn mouth shut.

Two hours since the briefing. Two hours of "I don't get why you have to take Sam," and "If McKay's such a genius, he should be able to do it himself," and "Sam's overqualified for this job," and "If there are some kinds of archaeologists involved in this, then Jackson should be on this mission."

It had been amusing the first ten times. Easy to remind him, too, that they had lent his team Rodney. That Jackson would be on this mission if he had listened to Rodney when he had warned him of the allergic reactions many people had when first eating the small yellow berries growing on the mainland that were being served in the messhall. Jackson had decided to not listen to Rodney and had of course had a severe allergic reaction. Carson wouldn't allow him beyond a one mile radius from the infirmary. She had explained this to Mitchell. One time. Two times. Three times. But the man just. Didn't. Stop.

Two hours now. The eight-year old kid in her neighbourhood back on earth had been less annoying when he'd wanted chocolate.

"Seriously, Ma'am, why did it have to be –"

Elizabeth grit her teeth.

***

One of the marines told her how to get to the Jumper Bay. Sam hurried. She didn't want to be late, even if this mission was supposed to be the Pegasus version of a cakewalk. Repair the malfunctioning power storage unit and the gate. The jumper - gateship, she thought, was so much more accurate - was parked in the centre of the bay, with its rear hatch down. Four Marines were loading crates inside.

Meanwhile, Colonel Sheppard's team were... not really doing anything.

Sam slowed to a walk and stared. These three - and Rodney McKay - were Atlantis' premiere gate team?

Oh boy.

The big, dreadlocked guy, Ronon Dex, was sitting cross-legged on the floor, casually picking leaves out of his dreadlocks and eating from a package of Fig Newtons.

The other team-member, Teyla, was perched on the edge of the jumper ramp. She was wearing regular mission gear, unlike Dex, at least. She was alternating sips of tea from a metal mug while playing something on what Sam knew was a Gameboy.

Both of them were utterly ignoring the Marines grunting and complaining as they loaded the jumper.

And if Sam had thought maybe Colonel Sheppard would be a little more professional, a little more interested in, though simple enough, saving lives on that planet, Alniyat, she was out of luck.

Sheppard was leaning back against the side of the jumper. His legs were crossed at the ankles. He had a handful of bright yellow lemons and was juggling.

Well, trying to juggle.

One lemon went up. Two lemons went up. Three lemons went into the air and Sheppard was squinting and biting his lip. Four lemons went up and, sure enough, all the lemons came down to the floor, accompanied by Sheppard's petulant, "Damn it."

One of the yellow fruits rolled right up to Sam's boot. She picked it up.

Sheppard saw her and waved, grinning, at her. "Hey, Colonel Carter."

She opened her mouth to reply and stumbled forward, flailing for her balance as someone ran right into her back. She brought up the hand holding the lemon and nearly lost an ear drum to a shout that was distinctly McKay-ish.

"Are you and Mitchell trying to kill me!?"

"Ow," Sam muttered, catching her balance and turning toward Rodney. "What?"

He was pointing at the lemon in her hand. "That!"

Sam grimaced. "This?" She noticed neither Dex nor Teyla were paying any attention. Teyla hadn't even looked up from the Gameboy. Sam squeezed the lemon and Rodney looked horrified for a second, then smirked.

"It's plastic, Carter."

Like the one Sheppard gave Cam. Hmn. That put the whole thing in a different light. Of course, what kind of colonel carried plastic lemons around? She choked a little. She could think of one, though he was a general now. Not that O'Neill ever carried lemons, but it was the kind of thing he would have done.

Sheppard ambled over and reached for the lemon in her hand. "And it's mine," he said, smiling at Sam.

Rodney snatched at the lemon, his fingers tangling with Sheppard's. Sheppard smirked. Rodney scowled. Jerk. Pull. Sam felt her eyebrows climbing, even as her fingers started to ache from holding on to the damned lemon.

"Oh, really, Colonel? Why am I not surprised?" Rodney spit at him.

"Really. Let go, McKay."

"Not if it meant winning a Nobel!"

"It's mine."

"Not anymore."

"Hey!" Sam yelled. "Enough."

Both men let go so fast she lost her grip on the plastic lemon and it dropped to the deck again. This time it rolled back to the jumper, stopping next to Teyla's foot. Without looking up from the Gameboy in one hand, she set her tea cup down, scooped up the lemon and tucked it inside her tac vest.

Sheppard and Rodney both looked sheepish. "Ooops," Sheppard said, smiling at her. Sam rolled her eyes.

"Okay, can we go now?" Rodney demanded, as though he'd been the one waiting for everyone else.

"After you, Colonel," Sheppard said to Sam, waving her to the jumper.

Behind her, Sam heard Rodney start up again. "You got those from Cadman, didn't you? I knew it! She's evil. She's an evil, tap dancing, body stealing, date wrecking security threat -- " _Tap dancing? _Sam could believe body stealing. After nine years in the SGC that was almost old hat. But tap dancing? That was alarming.

They'd reached Ronon Dex by that point and he made Sam jump by actually speaking. "She didn't shoot me, at least." She saw him give a meaningful look toward one of the men behind her. Sheppard, she thought.

"Hey, that was Thalan, not me!"

Definitely Sheppard.

"And I got shot, too, remember? By McKay. In the same arm the Wraith shot me in." He bent and scooped up Teyla's pack, carrying it into the jumper. Teyla rose, still playing what looked like _Tetris_ to Sam, murmuring, "Score," under her breath once.

Sheppard paused then and muttered, "I'm going to make Lorne pay for giving her that Gameboy."

Dex entered the jumper last. Sam was a little surprised, she hadn't heard him move. He made Teal'c seem heavy-footed. He sat down on a bench next to Teyla and watched the Gameboy over her shoulder.

Rodney paused there and tried to peer at the game, too. "How is -- ?"

"Shhh," Dex grumbled.

Before Sheppard could get distracted, too, Sam dropped her pack in front of the tied-down crates and said, "Can we go, then?" She was starting to wonder how these people ever got _anything_ done. "Finally?"

"Sure," Sheppard drawled, giving her a look like she just stomped his puppy. Rodney made a face at him and Sheppard made one back. Sam felt like a mean old spinster schoolteacher ruining two little boys' fun. Rodney jerked his head toward the front of the jumper and Sheppard raised his eyebrows. "Hey," he said to Sam next, "why don't you take the co-pilot's seat? Rodney won't mind."

"No, no, go right ahead," Rodney added, gesturing Sam forward.

Sam sat down and watched in envy as Sheppard ran through a pre-flight checklist, HUDs appearing and disappearing without him ever touching the control console. It was frustrating. Three hours from the nearest stargate to Alniyat with its malfunctioning gate, three hours of perfect practice time and she knew she'd never fly one of these vehicles since she didn't have the Ancient gene.

***

"Seriously, Ma'am, why did it have to be –"

"Control room, this is Jumper three, request permission to launch."

It was moments like these that she wanted to kiss John for his timing. "Jumper three, we've had no more contact with our team on Alniyat, and cannot dial in, so we have to assume that what their concerns were valid and your help is needed sooner rather than later." She threw a side-glance at Mitchell. This wasn't just a mission to amuse Sam Carter. This was about ancient artefacts interfering with Alniyat's stargate. From what the back-up team had gathered, they were looking at a malfunctioning power storage device that had the potential to blow up half the planet of a good and reliable trading partner. It wasn't any less valid than SG-1's wish to return to Earth. And, right now, the _Odyssey_ was dry-docked for repairs, anyway. Two more days. Elizabeth clenched and unclenched her hands. She could survive two more days. With John and Rodney gone, she only had three new kids to look after.

Elizabeth nodded toward the jumper: "You're clear to go. Check in every three hours."

There was a minor commotion of voices – Rodney and Colonel Carter, if she made it out correctly – and John's not-quite-calm "Hey!", then John cleared his throat and acknowledged: "Every three hours. Will do. Jumper three out."

Elizabeth bit back a grin. It seemed as though John wasn't any better off with Carter and Rodney bickering than she was with Mitchell complaining. Ah, justice in the universe.

The jumper hang in the middle of the gateroom for a few moments, then it slid into the event horizon, smooth and quiet.

The heavy pounding of boots on metal staircases made her look away from the sight of the wormhole disengaging.

Daniel Jackson came up the small staircase behind the balcony, out of breath and still pale from the severe allergic reaction, glasses slipping. He stopped in front of Elizabeth and Mitchell, panting.

"What's up, Jackson?"

It took Jackson a few moments to answer. "Have you seen Vala?"

Elizabeth shook her head. She hadn't seen the new member of SG-1 since the incident with Morgan le Fey.

Mitchell forehead creased in a frown. "I thought she was pampering you in the infirmary?"

"Apparently not." Jackson pushed his glasses back up his nose and grimaced, looking more upset than Elizabeth was comfortable with. "She said she wanted to meet up with you for lunch, so I didn't give it much thought, but –"

"Oh, no."

"Oh, yes."

"No."

"Sorry."

"No, no, no and no."

"Gentlemen!" Elizabeth was tired of looking between them as though part of some inane ping-pong game. She had a feeling that if no one put a stop to this, they'd still be at this tomorrow. She made a mental note to go and ask Emerson for that bottle of Whiskey she had asked him to bring. "Would you mind telling me what's going on here?"

"We, ah," Jackson started, not looking at her directly, "We seem to have lost Vala."

"She is a grown up woman, I doubt that she needs a constant escort around here. Atlantis is safe, Dr. Jackson." She smiled, couldn't help the jibe: "As long as you listen when you're warned not to touch certain foods."

"You don't understand, Ma'am," Mitchell cut in.

Elizabeth crossed her arms in front of her chest. "Then enlighten me."

"If you like this city, and want it to stay in one piece, we need to find Vala before she pokes her nose into something that will liberate something to make the city sink –"

"Or the _Odyssey_ blow up--"

"Or –"

"All right, all right, I get it!"

Was it a Tuesday, today? Elizabeth uncrossed her arms and pinched the bridge of her nose. She had never been very fond of Tuesdays.

***

Catching Sam's gaze, Sheppard started explaining the functions of the HUDs and various screens, soon interrupted by McKay, who leaned over her seat and began activating auxiliary displays.

Sam lost her sense of time. Rodney babbled about the Ancient technology. Sheppard gave her the pilot's perspective while outside, the darkness of space stretched before them. "Jumpers may look like cigar butts compared to a 302 or a dart, but they can pull manoeuvres that would rip off a 302's wings. And darts are just creepy."

Sam glanced at Sheppard, not trying to hide how impressed she was. "You've flown a Wraith dart?"

"Yes, yes, he did, and we were all suitably and exhaustively impressed," Rodney interrupted. He gave her a small, proud smile. "Teyla flew a Hive ship."

Sam turned around and her eyes widened, looking at Teyla.

"In a straight line, too," Teyla said without looking up.

Sheppard sniggered.

The high whine of a pulse weapon pulled and ready to fire made Sam whirl around. For a moment, she saw nothing but the broad, suede-clad back of Ronon Dex, his body poised for fight, the deadly calm of a sharp-shooter, then: "Whoa there, big boy."

Oh, no. Sam closed her eyes briefly. She tried to convince herself that she was having audio-hallucinations, caused by McKay's constant talking. It was even filling the quiet now, and so what if it sounded distinctly female, throaty and very much like-- Damn it. There just was no use in denying the obvious.

"Vala, what are you doing here?" Sam demanded as she tried to push past Dex.

He didn't budge. "How did she get on?" he hissed between clenched teeth. Over his shoulder, Vala smiled a brilliant smile at her.

"What is _she_ doing here?" McKay asked, looking at Sam.

"How did she--," Sheppard started to ask as well.

"I don't know!" Sam finally succeeded in pushing past Dex. She stopped in front of Vala with her hands propped on her hips. "I'm not the one who suddenly popped out of a crate, so why don't you ask her?"

Vala beamed at them. "Oh, ask me."

"I don't even want to know," McKay murmured. "All we need to know is how soon we can get her back to Atlantis," he finished, louder, echoing Sam's thoughts.

Vala's face fell. "You're just as boring as Daniel."

"That has nothing to do with boring and everything to do with you ruining a mission that is vital--"

"But I was bored."

"Vital to this planet and its inhabitants, not to mention an important source for really tasty--"

"Bored." Vala rolled her eyes and began to twiddle a strand of her pig-tailed hair around her index finger, not listening to a word McKay said. Sam had to give it to her - that was something she had never successfully managed. " B o r e d. Do you understand boredom?"

McKay crossed his arms and raised his chin, superior lecturing pose at full throttle. "No. Because unlike you, I don't spend my days hiding in crates and endangering important work--"

"Colonel Sheppard," Vala continued to ignore McKay. Sam wasn't amused by how McKay slowly turned red from indignation. Not at all. "You don't really want to send me back, do you?" Oh, there was the killer look. With a pout and big eyes and dangling pigtails, this one had even worked on Landry. Sam crossed her arms in front of her, realised she mirrored McKay, uncrossed them again and settled back in a waiting pose. This wasn't her command. Yes, Vala was on her team, but ultimately, Sheppard was in charge. And, oh, how she hated that fact right now. If she'd been in his shoes, Vala would have been back in Atlantis before she could have finished spelling boring again.

Teyla, who had been quietly watching the scene the entire time, suddenly rose from her bench. "I do not believe the either our team nor the Alniyats have the time for us to bring her back."

Sheppard bit his lower lip, turned toward the HUD and made a few adjustments before turning back. Buying time, Sam realised.

Vala fluttered her eyelashes. Teyla frowned. Poor bastard, Sam thought, watching Sheppard's hands glide over the consoles. His choice was between a rock and a hard place. Bring Vala back and cause an overload in the power storage device, or take her along and wait for god knew what she could come up with to sabotage the mission by her sheer presence.

All gazes locked on him, Sheppard finally shrugged. "Teyla's right. We don't have the time to go back. I guess we'll have to put up with her."

"I knew we'd get along," Vala beamed at him.

"Ronon, make sure she stays on the bench and doesn't move."

Vala's smile slipped again, morphed into a pout. "None of you Ta'uri men are actually interesting, are you?"

Sam saw McKay beginning to grin and Sheppard bristling. Score. If she were the betting type, Sam would say that Sheppard had never been called boring before in his life.

"Those Pegasus men, however ..." Vala sidled up to Dex and ran her other index finger in circles around the muzzle of the pulse weapon. That white shock of hair fell into her eyes and made the obvious leer even more smouldering. Smouldering. Jesus, she needed to stop reading women's magazines at the dentist. "Is your other gun as big as this one?"

From the cockpit, Sam heard McKay groan: "Oh, please." For the first time today, she agreed whole-heartedly.

Watching Teyla turned out to be amusing, though. The dark eyes narrowed a bit, then Teyla moved, fluid and fast, picking Vala's hand off the gun and squeezing her wrist. The skin under her fingernails turned white. Ouch. That had to hurt. But Vala – and Sam was honestly impressed here – didn't even flinch.

Dex, in the meantime, had lowered the gun and had started smirking. He gave Vala a look that lacked none of Vala's former openness. "Bigger."

Sam could swear she heard the bones in Vala's wrist grinding. She kept smiling, but there was a definite edge to it now. Sam felt helpless laughter bubbling up inside of her. This was the Pegasus version of a cat-fight. All that was missing were manicured nails and wild hissing noises and clawing. She wondered if she should start a betting pool, though for now, it seemed as though Teyla had the upper hand.

"You know, if you break this wrist, I will still have another hand to make sure he--"

"Oh, please, stop, I really don't want to know," McKay offered blessed distraction.

Sheppard turned back from the console again and heaved a put-upon sigh. "Kids," he said, raising his eyebrows in a way that made him look incredibly unrespectable. "Am I going to have to separate you?"

Vala finally twisted her wrist out of Teyla's grip and turned toward Sheppard. "You can always separate me personally. From my clothes." She winked at him. "In your room."

Sheppard turned back to the HUD and laughed, shaking his head.

That woman just didn't know when to stop, did she? Sam narrowed her eyes at her, hissing: "Vala!"

Vala – of course – just rolled her eyes and sauntered to the front, leaning her chin on Sheppard's shoulder, asking: "So, where are we going?"

***

When they opened the jumper's hatch, the heat was almost like a physical obstacle. Dry, hot air filled Sam's lungs and she had to squint against the glaring sunlight. Beside her, Sheppard reached for a pair of sunglasses and she regretted not having brought any herself. It was a comfort to realise that McKay was poking around the pockets of his tac-vest and came up empty as well. Looked as though they both hadn't prepared according to the weather reports sent by the back-up team.

Sam set to picking up her gear, grateful for the three men doing the dirty work of schlepping all the heavy equipment.

Over the hissing noise of the opening Velcro pocket on her tac-vest, she heard Vala inquire: "Are you sure you need this gene thingy to fly one of these?"

"Very sure and you aren't getting the therapy." Oh, McKay sounded pissed now. Well, after seeing how the jumpers handled even the smallest adjustment from Sheppard, and how versatile it was, she didn't blame him. Sam straightened and looked over her shoulder, just in time to see Vala reach out and pat Sheppard's head.

"Then I'll just have to steal the Colonel."

Sam grinned. Opening another pocket to double-check a set of extension cords to connect her laptop with the ancient technology gave her a good way to watch from the corner of her eye. Vala enjoyed teasing, and she had found the perfect victim in McKay. As much as she pitied him, being at Vala's mercy, she enjoyed watching just as much.

McKay poked a pointy finger at Vala when Sam stopped surveying the cord. "Don't even think about it!"

Sheppard shifted from one foot to the other, then leant against the hatch-door of the jumper in a posture that looked relaxed. "Relax, Rodney, she's just joking." Turning to Vala, Sheppard narrowed his eyes. "You _are_ just joking, right?"

Sam knew Vala was raising an eyebrow, giving Sheppard a speculative look this very second, even though she only saw the slim back and the masses of dark hair. Time for a little warning. And a little fun. "She's not," she supplied, her tone helpful.

Next to her, Dex suddenly sprang into action, picking up Vala up by the waist band, carrying her through the jumper's hatch and dropping her back to her feet in the pale desert sand of the street outside. "Forget it," he told Vala.

At the hatch, Teyla stepped up as well now, crossing her arms over her chest. "Colonel Sheppard belongs to us," she stated, her voice musical yet menacing. Sam forgot about double-checking and mission prep and inched forward into the broad stretch of bright sunlight entering the jumper.

Outside, Vala straightened her clothes and put on a pout. "But it doesn't look like you're _doing_ anything with him." She took a step closer, her look turning speculative: "Maybe I could just borrow him?"

The answer came as a single word, from all three team-members at the same time: "No!" They turned away from the street outside, back so they were facing her. Sheppard was looking confused. "Ah, guys?" Nobody seemed to listen to him. "Still here, you know?"

Rodney straightened. "Exactly. And you're not going anywhere either of us can't see you." He narrowed his eyes. "Try it and I'll have Ronon put you on a leash."

Ronon gave a feral grin and tugged on the rope hanging from the side of the jumper. Sam just barely managed to disguise a snort of laughter in a cough.

Sheppard turned to her, gave a full body shrug and drawled: "They love me."

Sam lifted a box of control crystals and decided that, yes. There really was no other explanation.

***

Elizabeth stared at the graphs and bits of information in Ancient slowly scrolling on her screen and pressed a thumb against the bridge of her nose. Translating was taking too long today, but John's team expected her to present them with the necessary information once they reached Alniyat.

All they knew was what the first team had reported: The planet's climate had changed drastically over the past ten thousand years, the oceans receding, turning huge stretches of land into desert and making water as precious as gold. On either side of the planet, jungles had vanished, and the area in which the stargate was located was no longer surrounded by tundra but by a desert twice as big as the Sahara. Life still flourished, there were cities built around the remaining water reservoirs, but the core-technology of the Ancient outpost once on Alniyat had been stolen by gate-hopping technology scavengers after a massive sandstorm had released the outpost from its sandy grave--

A knock on the glass door brought her back to the here and now. Jackson stood in the door frame, giving her a small wave.

"Dr. Jackson, come in." His face still looked slightly swollen and he kept rubbing his hands as though to alleviate a constant itch. Having had the same reaction before, Elizabeth sympathised for a few seconds before she remembered that he had been warned and didn't listen. "Did you find your missing team member?"

Jackson frowned. "No. It's a ... big city."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. "Really?"

Jackson gave her a small grin, recognising the touché. "What are you working on?" he asked.

Elizabeth sank back in her chair and rubbed her temple. "Translating the final information needed for the mission. Colonel Sheppard and his team expect it upon arrival on Alniyat."

"Anything interesting yet?"

She huffed. "If I were an Ancient, I could answer that question."

Jackson smiled. "I know you'll likely say no, and I don't mean to belittle your translation skills, but if you wanted to, I could have a look." He raised his hands in a deflecting gesture. "Only if you want to."

Elizabeth rose from her chair after a moment of thinking. "This isn't about stroking my ego, Dr. Jackson. It's about vital information. If you're willing to help, I'll gladly take you up on your offer."

She stepped aside and invited him to sit in her place. "My notes are here. There's not a lot missing, but I think there might be grammatical errors which prevent me from seeing the entire picture. Ancient is worse than Latin in that regard."

Jackson settled in, his gaze fastened on the screen. He began typing fast soon after, correcting some of her notes and frowning at the screen.

She stood behind him, watching and learning some of the finer points of the Ancient language. She wasn't kidding herself – Jackson had basically been an Ancient and he was a studied linguist, she'd be cutting into her own flesh if she didn't accept his aid. Of course, it always smarted having to admit defeat, but Elizabeth had been in the business too long to think she could solve everything herself, at least not with the time frame she was confined to.

After about twenty minutes, Jackson stopped typing and sank back against the chair backrest.

"A shield?" Elizabeth asked, staring at the screen.

"A planet-wide shield, yes."

"That's incredible," Elizabeth said, her heart beating faster. "Is there any way we can use the information to duplicate it here?" Elizabeth fought hard to suppress the shudder when she thought of the last Ancient experiment they had found on such an outpost, forcing herself instead to focus on the positive side of things.

Jackson shook his head. "These are just the basics. It looks like someone basically just wrote a report on what he'd seen on Alniyat, but the actual research remained on the planet. She just mentions that the project was still having power issues and that they were working on resolving these – but had to abandon it when the war came."

"No more information about what happened to the outpost?"

"None."

The clang of the Stargate activating made the floor vibrate under her feet. "Just in time," she said to Jackson, smiling. "Thank you for your help."

A crackling came over the speakers, almost obscuring the speaker's voice. "Atlantis, this is Sheppard, come in."

Elizabeth stepped out of her office and to the railing, frowning. "John, we have news for you..."

***

"That's it," Sheppard said when he stepped out of the shadow of an alleyway where he'd been standing, talking with Weir. "Communication with Atlantis is completely shot. Looks like some electromagnetic interference."

"Anything new?" McKay asked, looking up from the readings he'd been taking with Sam.

Sheppard shrugged. "Elizabeth says hi, sounded a bit miffed about having lost Miss Mal Doran." Sam had an idea how Daniel and Cam must have pestered Elizabeth and winced in sympathy.

Vala gave a radiant smile. "Aww. Do they miss me already? I hope you gave them all my best and told them that Mother would be back home for supper?" She turned to Ronon and added, conversationally: "Can't leave those kids alone for too long, they get cheeky otherwise."

Ronon snorted. A grin twitched around Sheppard's lips. Even Teyla ventured a small smile.

Sam directed her concentration back to calibrating her hand-held scanner. "How far away from the city did your contact say the power storage device was?" She'd been staying behind with the jumper and McKay to check on their equipment while Sheppard, Ronon, Vala and Teyla met up with a representative of the local leader.

"Half an hour on foot to the power storage, and a good two hours to The Field of Sun," Sheppard made little airquotes around the name of the field which reminded her a lot of McKay and made her wonder how many of Daniel's, Jack's or Teal'c's mannerisms she had adopted over the years. "Whatever that may be."

"And did they graciously offer us a couple of camels to get there?" McKay asked with a sneer in his voice. He didn't look up from his laptop.

Vala, Sam noted, looked confused, similar to Ronon and Teyla. They all had a fine layer of dust on their clothes, the subtle glittering of desert sand. "It's a mammal that's used for transportation in the big deserts on Earth."

"Nope. Just mentioned something about sandstorms. No harem girls, either, McKay, so keep dreaming." Sheppard entered the jumper just as McKay muttered: "Never any fun on missions." Sam's and Sheppard's hands almost touched in mid-air, ready to whack the back of McKay's head. Sam grinned. Sheppard grinned back.

"Still want to call shotgun, Colonel?"

Sam stretched her back and set down the scanner she'd been calibrating. McKay would take care of it. "Sure," she said, trying hard not to sound too enthusiastic. Next to her, McKay rolled his eyes.

"Off to the Field Of The Sun, then," Sheppard announced. "Fasten your seatbelts, kids."

***

The desert was endless beyond the jumper's windscreen, stretching out as far as the eye could see, lost in the distance where it kissed a pale blue sky.

They were on their third cursory flight over the area to determine the size of the solar field and so far, they'd only seen small bits of petal-like solar cells protruding from the ground at uneven intervals. The light reflected off them, bright and painful to the eyes.

This time, McKay and Sheppard had calibrated the scanners to see through the quartz-heavy sand better. Sam enjoyed watching both men work together, the easy banter and the give and take of information of ideas was something that reminded her of Jack and Daniel in a way, with the exception of Sheppard having an almost intuitive understanding when it came to the jumpers, and McKay's lecture on jumper systems being much more annoying than Daniel's speeches, but also much more interesting.

"All right. Here goes." Sheppard eased the jumper into a smooth curve and flew low over the desert sand. The HUD flickered for a moment, cleared. Then Sam's jaw dropped and McKay gave an audible gasp.

"Cool," Sheppard commented.

Behind her, Vala wrestled to the front: "Let me see, I want to see!"

The HUD was filled with what looked like the pale silver veins and outlines of a huge flower, spanning almost the entire desert.

"Holy shit," Sam muttered under her breath. If this was really what she thought it was, they were in much more trouble than they had originally thought. "Is that--"

"A solar cell field," McKay finished her sentence, thinly veiled awe in his voice. He tore his gaze away from the view outside the jumper's front window and took a few steps back toward his open laptop.

A solar cell field. Sam watched it with both amazement and dread. If any more of those cells got unburied by the strong winds blowing over the desert, they had a massive problem that would make the current situation look like the proverbial molehill next to the mountain. With the change in climate that studying the Alniyat history had told them about, much more sunlight was getting to the few exposed parts of the huge solar cell field, and those few cells were collecting much more energy than the system could handle. The energy storage unit wasn't big enough to store that much energy. It was never supposed to store that much without releasing it to the shield immediately, so now, just imagining what a storm could cause, unburying more of the solar cell field ... She shivered.

Despite the unpleasant idea of what massive power-surges could do to the power storage installation next to the Alniyat city, Sam's thoughts were distracted by something on the screen as Sheppard swept in an even lower curve over the desert. The gusts of strong wind that the jumper had kept a running tally of during their entire flight, moved the sand below them in waves like the ocean. A gentle up and down, up and down that was almost hypnotic. Only with one of the last gusts, it revealed a silvery shape under the masses of sand. Something began to move suddenly, like a leviathan under, slow, with difficulty, then faster, as though waking from an age-old dream. More silvery silhouettes became visible, formed a petal-shaped surface, moved again, slow, as though testing something Sam couldn't put a finger on and then –

Sam held her breath, and heard Sheppard next to her doing the same. An uncharacteristically soft "Oh" came from Vala and behind them, she heard Ronon and Teyla moving closer, their boots light and soft on the metal floor.

Before the jumper's windshield, a flower of solar cells began to rise from the sand, a bud first, then slowly, slowly the petal-shaped cells were moving one by one, seeming to shake off the sand and expand and breathe, each moving on its own like a sunflower turning to the sun. When it was finally completely uncovered, it spanned a diameter of almost 100 metres.

Beautiful. Absolutely beautiful and stunning – and deadly to the Alniyat in the city.

Sam released the breath from her lungs with a whoosh, rose from her seat and walked back to where McKay was standing.

"Did you see that?"

"From back here, yes, while doing some actual work instead of ooooh-ing and aaaah-ing," McKay answered, but the heat from the insult was missing. The veins Sheppard's HUD had shown her before were glowing in an angry red on McKay's screen.

"How's the collector doing?" Sam asked, bending over his shoulder.

He glanced back at her, confused for a moment by having her stand so close, then he moved the laptop a little so she could see better: "Not good. That thing opening just caused another energy spike."

"And the shield the energy was supposed to power is malfunctioning still?"

"There isn't much left of the damn shield. We'd have to build it from scratch--"

"Or make the mayor give us the blueprints he has found. That way, we might stop it from blowing up completely."

"Yeah, about that ..." McKay straightened his back and called to the front of the jumper: "Sheppard? Do you have an appointment with the mayor yet?"

Sheppard bowed his head a little, but didn't take his eyes from the HUD where he was busy cataloguing the solar cell field. "Around noon," he confirmed.

"Can you speed it up?" McKay asked, impatient. "This baby is ready to blow in case you hadn't noticed, and we might only have a couple more hours to fix it."

"So fix it." Sheppard shrugged.

McKay looked as thogh he was desperately wishing to throttle Sheppard. "Sun collectors," McKay explained – big, sweeping gestures and all - with his usual fast-paced lecturing voice that always made Sam want to punch him. She never sounded that way when she explained things. Never. At least, Jack had never complained. Or, wait ...

She tuned back in to find McKay in mid-rant"--obviously beyond those people, and if we don't find out the algorithm that restructures and fixes the energy acceptance of the solar cell field and its connection to the power storage device, then every bit of wind that uncovers another solar cell will cause the whole thing to blow up. Only, without the blueprints, we _can't_ fix it and it _will_ blow up."

"You always fix things," Ronon rumbled behind Sam, and she had to bite back a smile on the confidence in his voice. Apparently, McKay hadn't heard him, he was busy calling up screen after screen on his laptop – power statistics, the storage device, possible strategies for battling the problem.

Sam leaned closer again, pointing at a schematic. "I think that if we somehow managed to channel the energy into another storage device or just somehow stopped the cells from transmitting energy to the original storage device near the Alniyat city--"

McKay rolled his eyes and put his hands on his hips. "We might stop it, yes, but we don't have the time to come up with a brilliant plan on how to build another storage device."

Sam followed suit in his display of strength. "We have at least five hours, McKay."

"Plenty of time for pizza and a beer after you're done, then, right?" Sheppard quipped from the front. Out of the corner of her eye, Sam saw Vala sniggering and Teyla biting back a grin.

McKay straightened his back, took several deep breaths. A vein at his temple pulsed, making Sam wonder if Sheppard had gone too far. "Could we stop with the arbitrary numbers and the stupid comments and just go back to work, please?" McKay asked, voice tight. Turning toward Sheppard again, he added: "Bring us back to the city, Colonel. We've seen enough, and we're on a clock, here," A pause, and a lifted head in Ronon's direction, "if you and the rest of the Scoobies want your pizza and your beer."

Ronon crossed his arms in front of his chest and looked smug. "Told you," he said to Sam.

She wondered whom of them she should slap first.

***

Sand, nothing but sand - in waves, ornate dunes gently sloping around them, only barely leaving enough room to glimpse the mountains in the distance, where the Field Of The Sun was. The sand was a soft ochre, single quartz crystals glittering in the sunlight. It reminded Sam of setting foot on Abydos. The dry, hot air, the scattered bits of dead brush sticking out from under the sand, the glare of the sunlight. Only Abydos had been what she'd back then considered was Egyptian design and now knew was Goa'uld.

This, Sam thought as she turned back to the installation that had been dug out from underneath the sand, this design was most definitely Ancient. The typical heavy-set, ornate metal and the usual consoles housing the control crystals, but that was about it, then. Filegree looking partitions of some kind of super enduring plexiglass gave the workstation cover from the sand while still allowing the people who had worked there to overlook the desert. Sam guessed that, fully functional, there was a forcefield protection the installation, too. If it still were complete, that was. Where there would have been a monitor, a slit gaped on the console - thiefs, most likely, scavenging during the moments when the Alniyat didn't know what it was they had dug from the sand here. What the thiefs could have used a holographic screen without the console for was beyond her, though - unless it had just been for parts. Sam cringed inwardly - it would be much harder to work with everything here without decent screens. Connecting the concole to the laptops would only cost them time again.

McKay set his hands on the console, trying to activate it Nothing happened. Sheppard stepped foward, trying as well, but the result was the same - nothing. He wrinkled his brow, biting his lower lip. McKay made a little, gleeful noise. "Not working for you either, eh?"

Sheppard pulled a face. "I doubt it would work for anyone, McKay."

"No, really?" sarcasm dripped from McKay's voice and posture. He opened the console with something akin to a flourish in Sheppard's direction. Sand crunched as the metal glid forward reluctantly. "Were you going to tell me that--" he pointed at the empty housing of the console, finding only empty slots where the control crystals should have been, " the main crystals are gone?" He scoffed at Sheppard. "So sorry to tell you I already figured that out."

"But you tried first, too," Sheppard said mulishly.

"Well, yes, but that doesn't--"

"Can we start working now, McKay?" Sam asked and pushed ahead of him to peer at the open console. The main crystal slots were empty, but there were shards and black marks around the slots. Some of the remaining crystals looked mutated, as though grown together somehow. Sam frowned. This really wasn't good and was likely to take longer than they had originally thought. Bright yellow desert sunlight was burning her neck and nose, making her wish she had brought a cap and sunscreen. She fiddled for the bandana in her tac-vest.

"How did the Alniyat even activate it?" Vala asked, twirling one of her pigtails around a long finger.

"Ah!" McKay exclaimed, delight colouring his voice into a higher octave. He raised a finger and Sam rolled her eyes. '_Here we go again_.' She wished Vala had just shut up. They'd all heard the story during the briefing, there really was no need to go all over it –

"They may have dug out this equipment, but it is Ancient, meaning they were fumbling around, poking their noses into things way beyond their level of comprehension, trying to come up with some way to use it, but the path from fiddling around with it to understanding was not a golden one, nor has it ever been trodden."

Sam bit her lips when she watched Vala look at Sheppard with a frown and a confused shake of her head. "What?" It worried Sam a little that she had understood exactly what McKay had meant.

"It's like a guy from the middle ages finding a computer. He'll eventually figure out how to turn it on, but he has no clue how it works, or how to fix it when something breaks," Sheppard said.

"That is grossly oversimplifying –"

"Actually, it is a pretty accurate description of what went wrong here, McKay," Sam said, though wincing inwardly at Sheppard's attempt, to stop the tirade that was looming. They didn't have the time for this. "They activated it, someone pulled the main crystals but the process had been set in motion, by the looks of it fried a couple of the other crystals, fusing them, and they coudn't turn it off again anymore." She finished tying the bandana around hers head with a resolute tug.

"A guy from the middle ages with a computer." McKay just looked disgusted by the explanation. "Fine. Whatever works for small minds."

"Watch it," Ronon Dex rumbled and McKay did actually shrink back a bit, his mouth drooping slightly. Well, well. Wasn't that interesting. A grin tugged at the corners of Sam's mouth.

"Hmph."

"If you're ready?"

"I've been ready the entire time."

"Looked different."

"I'm sorry, but I was busy explaining the reason for this mission to--" Dex narrowed his eyes and Sam could see McKay trying to find something less cutting but no less direct. "To my street smart friends here."

Sam bit back another grin. Street smart. Only McKay. She was beginning to see the benefits of this mission apart from working with potentially valuable Ancient technology and getting her mind away from the Ori for a day. She hadn't been that amused in a while, not even by Daniel and Cam.

They both bent over the Ancient computer console. The keyboard was covered in dust, despite the protective cover. Desert sand crept into everything, no matter how tight you tried to seal it. She remembered missions in full combat gear, and still she had found sand in her underwear. Damn deserts. Sam scratched at her arm and found McKay mirroring her action. She dropped her hand immediately.

The next half hour was hellish. Heat from the sun turning the area around the solar energy station into an oven. There were wires and control crystals spread around them, some of them blackened and dull. This wasn't just a matter of finding an algorithm anymore, it had turned out as a major problem that required them to reconnect the hardwired logic control crystal conduits anew, and bridge them when reconnecting was impossible due to damaged crystals.

McKay was head first under the console, a dark stain forming on his grey shirt. Sweat was trickling down her own temples and her back and blown in sand settled on everything, making her skin itch like mad. At least the console was placed under a see-through canopy of sorts that blocked out UV light. It saved them from getting sunburned into a nice lobster shade, but it still didn't stop the heat from building up. Sam wiped her forehead and took the bottle Teyla offered her.

McKay chose that exact moment to scramble out from beneath the console with a victorious "Hah!". He snatched the bottle from Sam's hand and gulped down long swallows of water. Sam watched his throat work, too perplexed to chide him.

"You're welcome," she said instead when he handed her the now empty bottle.

"The brain dries out first. We geniuses have to keep it watered."

"Are you done?" Sheppard asked. He'd been talking to Vala, Ronon and Teyla while she and McKay had been working, a steady, reassuring hum of voices that had helped her concentrate better. It reminded her of her lab at the SGC. Her nice, air conditioned lab.

"Does it look as if we are done?"

Sam looked up in surprise. This was the first time McKay had used the plural all day. "_We_, is it, McKay?"

He rose, walked around the console, away from Sheppard, Ronon and Teyla. "Yes, we. I'm not taking full responsibility if your bridging job doesn't work and we fry this entire station."

Sam gave a him a glare and just stopped short of putting both hands on her hips in exasperation. _Breathe, Sam. Just breathe_. "If _my_ bridging job doesn't work? How about your hasty reconnecting?"

He dusted off his hands and raised his chin. "That wasn't hasty, I always work this fast."

"And I don't make mistakes rewiring."

"But you're wrong, don't you see, right here, on this monitor, you can see how very, very –"

Sam gnashed her teeth, balled her hands into fists. Forced her face into a thin-lipped smile. She wondered if Sheppard would stop her if she tried to throttle McKay.

***

Flicking of hair. Clicking of the heels. Thrumming of fingers on bare arms. Exasperated groans. Stretching. And not one of those attempts at getting away from here had worked so far.

Time for more drastic measures. Especially where those two were concerned.

"No, no, no, you're wrong, how many more times do I have to tell you --"

"Oh, come on, McKay, you know that it's not me who's wrong, it's --"

Vala took a step closer. "You're both wrong, actually."

"What?" Ah, a reaction. McKay really was too easy. But Sam had hinted at that.

"You're wrong," she repeated, moving closer so she could look fully at the screen. "Here," she pointed at an illuminated line on the display, "And here."

Sam narrowed her eyes. "What?"

"And how do you know that, hm?" McKay asked, folding his arms over his chest. He wasn't tall enough to look down at her, but verbally managed to do so anyway.

"Well, quite simply by looking at you two work. You're both so proud to be scientists, so let me make a list: a) You're both so aggravated that you can't get a clear thought in edgewise, b) you do nothing but provoke each other when c) it's pretty clear that all you want is to jump--"

"Vala!" Sam hissed.

"What? It's true, isn't it?"

"No!"

"Well, ever since you first mentioned his name, you've been going on and on and on about how much he is getting on your nerves, how much you want to throttle him, how he is annoying and selfish and arrogant and petty and," she halted, noticing how Sam ducked her head and blushed and McKay's mouth turned down while Sheppard had a frown firmly in place and was directing it toward Sam. So did Ronon and Teyla. "You've been talking about him so much that there really can't be any other conclusion than ..." She trailed off, smirking. Vala really felt sorry for Sam sometimes. All those looks and brains, and so very uptight, so scared of just reaching out and taking. It was a pity, really. Sam could have a lot of fun if only she'd let go a little.

Sam's head had snapped up during her last words, the other woman's glare practically drilling holes into her skull. "Remember how Daniel told you to keep practising how to shut up?"

Vala twirled a strand of hair around her index finger. "No. He's always so grumpy." A pout, for good measure. "I don't like listening to grumpy people." She poked her other index finger to McKay's chest. "Which is what makes listening to _you_ so incredibly tedious." To her side, Sheppard hid a snicker. Ronon and Teyla shared a glance. Vala shook her head. "Honestly, Colonel Carter, I don't get what you see in him that makes you so--"

"Vala!" The blush now spread from Sam's cheeks to her entire face and down her neck. It was quite pretty, actually. McKay turned toward Sam, confusion written all over his face. He, too, noticed the blush and slowly, slowly, a grin appeared on his face. This was more to her liking. McKay was getting on her nerves a lot of the time, but at least he knew what he wanted. She figured he'd be willing to reach out and seize the day, too. Yes, she liked that in a man, but his grin was quickly morphing into one so smug she had the urge to wipe it off his face again.

Vala gave him a measured once-over. "Of course, you'll never stand a chance with her, little man."

Sheppard's snicker sounded choked. Teyla bit her lip. Ronon cocked an eyebrow.

McKay's eyes flashed. "What do you mean by that?"

"A woman like Colonel Carter needs --"

"Ah, ah!" Sam interrupted, sounding desperate. "What a woman like Colonel Carter needs is to be able to work without discussing highly inappropriate ... things."

Vala pulled a mock-impressed face. How Sam ever managed to have sex with that attitude was beyond her. "Hmm. Eloquent."

"If you want eloquent, I can give it--"

Sam put a hand on his arm, holding him back. "No, McKay, please, don't get her started."

"Started? What the hell has she been doing until now if you don't want to get her started?"

Vala smiled sugary sweet and sidled up to McKay, leaning close. "Would you like to find out, my tedious sweetheart?" Just to irk him, she ran her hand over his chest and biceps and halted there, squeezing. Surprisingly muscular. Vala whistled appreciatively. And he smelled good. Nice. "You know, Colonel, I think I have found something that could make me understand what you see in him. Nicely broad and strong, I bet he is good at--"

"TMI!" Sheppard called, raising his hands to his ears. Teyla cocked an eyebrow and matched Ronon. Ronon raised his hand to his mouth to hide the grin. Vala winked at him. Finally someone with a sense of humour around here.

"Touch Me Instantly?" Vala turned away from McKay and directed her most seductive smile at Sheppard. "Any time you want, darling."

"All right, all right, enough," Sam called, lifting her hands in defeat. "Look, Colonel, I'd consider it a personal favour if you took her away from here. I can't work like this." Sam gestured toward McKay. "Neither of us can."

"I'm not leaving you and McKay alone here."

"Colonel, please. This isn't my first offworld mission." There was that bristling again, the one she had seen in Sam a couple of times before when someone suggested she needed help because she was a woman. Vala had never understood that sentiment: If the men wanted to be helpful and do the dirty work because they thought a woman couldn't do it, why would she argue with them? Playing a role made life so much easier. "And you have negotiations to attend to," Sam continued. "Besides, if the power storage blows, we're looking at a planet-wide devastation, huge shock-waves, like a tsunami made of several hundred feet high waves of sand."

"And," McKay chimed in, "we'd lose the stargate as well, causing the naquadah to only make the devastation so much worse."

"How much worse?"

"It'd make Hiroshima look like a walk in the park," Sam said, once again referencing something Vala didn't understand. From the way Sheppard's jaw tensed, she realised that it couldn't be good, though.

"Think Arcturus, on a marginally smaller scale," McKay added. Sheppard's eyes flashed and McKay crossed his arms but held Sheppard's gaze. Well, well. Vala felt the tension radiating of both men like crackling energy. Wasn't that interesting.

Sam broke the tension when she turned her most sincere gaze at Sheppard, the one that Vala had seen work even on Landry and Mitchell. "So. Now, please?"

***

Some days, pickpocketing on some random market on some random planet was just a way to make sure she didn't lose her skills.

Today, it was one part boredom and two parts deliberately annoying the pretty Atlantis team-leader she now had to herself, after Ronon and Teyla had taken point and were walking a good twenty metres ahead of them. He was fun when he was annoyed, not like Daniel, who turned grumpy, or Cameron, who got snippy, or Teal'c, who just raised an eyebrow, something that could mean about a hundred things she still tried to decipher.

Sheppard was interesting. And interested, though not nearly enough. She'd caught him looking at her legs earlier on, and, wow, really, who still ogled legs these days? Days like these, she missed her leather outfit. It had worked well on Daniel, but, oh, had that been a disappointment in the long run. Somehow, she doubted that Sheppard would be a disappointment. Too many laugh lines. Too boyish.

She hadn't yet made up her mind about Ronon and Teyla, but she realised that Teyla was no one to be underestimated. She might be small, but the grip she'd had on Vala's wrist before made it very clear that Teyla was not someone you wanted on your bad side. And if there was one thing Vala had learned on strange planets, it was to not have people in her closest circle who were on her bad side.

"Miss Doran –"

"I _told_ you to call me Vala." She threw in a pout for good measure. "Formal doesn't suit you."

A smile lifted the corners of his mouth. "Even informal, you need to put that back." Long, callused fingers closed around her wrist, making her drop the small pink fruit. "The other one, too."

Oh, for-- He had to have watched her petty damn close to realise that she'd been taking the fruit, or she was losing her stealth. Vala rolled her eyes. "You're no fun."

His grin broadened. "Oh, I can be."

Playful? That was new. He had been rather uptight while watching McKay and Sam work and snipe at each other. Now, he was much more at ease, his gait ambling and loose-limbed, and she guessed he'd be easy to –

"And that one belongs to me, so you'd better take your hand back before I cut it off."

Vala pulled her hand away from the vest-pocket on his waist and frowned. "Oh, you wouldn't."

"No, I wouldn't. But the threat wasn't bad, was it?"

"With a little less smirking and a little more actual threat? You would be a very scary mean and bad man."

His smirk widened, then he let go of her wrist and scanned the marketplace for the meeting place their local guide had mentioned before he had scurried off. It was a small, cramped place nestled between the houses that offered little protection against the hot winds coming in from the desert. Everything had a layer of dust here, even the fruit she just placed in her bag. The sun was merciless, beating down on the people – weather-beaten and looking older than they were. They reminded Vala of too many low-tech planets she had seen. All of them depressing. Well, at least those desert planets had one thing going for them: The warmth. She noticed Sheppard barely sweating, unlike McKay and Sam, both very pale types who appeared to come from colder climates and weren't used in the sun. Sheppard wasn't like that at all. He stood in the sun like a feline, soaking up the warmth. Having been on Atlantis now, she understood why.

"Over there, Colonel," Teyla suddenly called out, waiting for them to catch up with her and pointing at a narrow house with a blinding white front and a dark blue door. People lined up in front of it. Most of them in the gear of the planet's natives, wide linens and earthen colours, but there also were four men in the washed out remains of uniforms.

They looked to be no more then fugitives, maybe soldiers gone rogue, but next to Vala, Sheppard, Teyla and Ronon tensed and laid their hands on their weapons.

"What?" Vala asked, wanting to be prepared if there was trouble ahead.

Sheppard pushed his sunglasses higher on his nose and pressed a single word out between his clenched teeth: "Genii."

***

"Teyla does the bartering?" Sam asked, while sorting through the disarray of wires leading up to where McKay stood, connecting the console with both their laptops. "Not Sheppard?"

"Sheppard?" McKay snorted. "Are you crazy?" He gave a short laugh. "No, we like to keep our allies when we eventually make them. Besides," a grin, bordering on proud, brightened his face, "Teyla can out-barter a Ferengi."

Sam smiled into the wiring before shooting a glance up at McKay. "She doesn't have the ears for it."

McKay gaped at her for a second, obviously surprised she had gotten the joke, then grinned at her, before bending over the bank of crystals again. A bead of sweat ran down his neck and vanished under the collar of his shirt.

"You know how it goes. You have Teal'c on your team, we have Ronon and Teyla."

"Two for one?" Sam quipped.

McKay's head snapped up and his eyes narrowed.

Sam realized she'd made a mistake just as soon as she spoke. The privilege of mocking a team mate belonged in a team. Outsiders weren't allowed. She hadn't associated that sort of loyalty with McKay, though. When had he developed such a nasty glare, anyway? She felt the immediate urge to take a step back under it. "Sorry," she said. "Sorry, I was just joking."

"They're good people," McKay said, his voice quiet. "I wouldn't be alive if it weren't for them and Sheppard. Of course," he paused, lifting his chin and sliding a sneer into place, "Sheppard also usually gets us into those messes in the first place, but," he waved a hand in a semi circle, "you know."

"Yeah," Sam agreed. "I do." She knew about all the ramifications of being on a team, no, _in_ a team, the ups and downs, saving lives and endangering them. She knew well enough to feel stupid. Rodney bent over his work again, alternating between the crystals and his laptop, checking read-outs, ignoring her. She'd never been as slick in social settings as she'd have liked, though not inept like McKay, and he'd wrong-footed her without evening realizing it. Not that she would admit to this even on her deathbed.

Sam straightened her back and reached for the bottle of water resting on a divider in the partition. Her dry eyes ached and her forehead had probably permanently furrowed from squinting.. Next to her, McKay stopped tapping his fingers on the keyboard, the soft sound immediately missing. She swallowed and winced when even the lukewarm water hurt her parched throat.

"Well?" Sam asked. She angled her body toward him. "Do you have it?"

"Actually," Mckay said, in an unmistakable _oh shit_ tone, "I don't have it, because we have bigger problems. All the storage cells are full and the energy buffer is approaching overload."

Sam bent over the console, saw the numbers and sucked in a sharp breath between her teeth. "Crap." Once they repaired the connections between the array and the rest of the system, one more sunny hour, and _boom_!

"No kidding." His hands were flying over the keyboard, frantically pulling up diagrams. His eyes widened when the first one flickered up, then he dropped to his knees in front of the console, pulling at cables he had just meticulously inserted over the past hour.

Sam clenched her hand around the side of the laptop when she saw the diagram McKay had pulled up. Despite the heat, cold sweat broke out all over her body suddenly. She caught his gaze when he looked up. "If we don't find a way to cover all the solar cells or convert some of that energy--"

"Everything in a 50 kilometre radius is history, yeah." McKay ran both hands through his hair before turning back to the wires. His hands were steady, but in such a flurry of motion that Sam almost got dizzy.

She bent over her own laptop, pulling up a new screen, her eyes widening at the glaring red indicating the power storage's status. "How long has this facility been active, for god's sake?" Sam couldn't help but ask.

"According to the readings our First Contact team took upon arrival, it's been storing energy for slightly over 10,000 years." McKay looked up and snapped his fingers for the bottle. Sam handed it to him with a glare – this wasn't the time for an argument about manners. McKay took a hasty swallow while pulling and reconnecting wires with his free hand. "No one expected it to work this long without any way of using the energy. It probably was close to maximum capacity a couple of hundred years ago – the sand saved everything. The latest massive sandstorm uncovered the arrays and – boom. Overload." He took another sip from the bottle and closed his eyes. "Stupid Ancients."

Sam forced a grin before bending over her laptop again, bringing up the schematics she had extrapolated from the data they had. Damn it, but they could have used those blueprints now. "Really, McKay, they built all this and you call them stupid?"

He glared at her and pointed. "I absolutely do. They left half finished projects all over this galaxy and in every lab in Atlantis. Everything they designed is a nightmare to repair because they assumed it would last forever and didn't care what happened if it didn't. They were stupid and selfish and a bunch of cowards who bugged out when the going got tough. Oh, and, hey, the Ascended? Are gutless and worthless and entirely too handsy-tentacley when it comes to Sheppard. I swear, he's like honey to them. Even Jackson! Did you see the way he was hanging all over Sheppard in the cafeteria this morning?"

She couldn't bite back the laughter at this tirade. _Possessive, much, McKay? _Though Daniel _had_ been pestering Sheppard about his time in the time dilation field among the pre-Ascended. Still, they didn't really have time for this. She forced her mind back to the problem of too much energy with no place to go.

"So ... remember what the energy was supposed to be used for?"

McKay rolled his eyes. "To power a planet-wide shield, but--"

"No _but_, McKay, the simplest way to expend the excess energy is to run it through a transformer and power up the shield. First rule of thermodynamics," Sam interrupted smoothly.

He crossed his arms in front of his chest, the gesture giving him a long-suffering look. "It won't work. The Ancients abandoned the shield technology for places this big. There is no way we can fix it in what little time we have to –"

Sam glanced up from the schematics and shot him a quick glare. She was running out of patience. "It doesn't matter how inefficient it is or how long it lasts, as long as we empty the reserves. The faster the better, in fact. I don't have to remind you that we're on a clock here, do I?"

"My God, you did _not_ just say that!" He pointed at her like she'd spouted horns and tail. As a scientist, Sam understood that deliberately wasting energy verged on heresy, but McKay looked horrified and ill at the thought. "Besides, the shield generator isn't fully functional from what I've been able to see."

"We don't have to fix it, McKay. All we need is a way to make it use some of the power. You know that even if we dump sand back on the arrays and or pull the plug, this facility is still going to blow soon. Containment is failing. We can't undo that." She pointed at the covered mounds of the storage devices, where small rivulets of sand ran off the suddenly vibrating devices. "The process has already started."

He was bent over his laptop as well, checking the plan Sam had hastily cobbled together. The tap-tap-tap of his fingers on the keyboard was loud. His head snapped up. "I know that!"

There was a time for banter and for discussion, and then there was now. Sam slammed both hands on the console next to her. "Well, then what the hell is your problem?"

McKay looked up fully now, eyes narrow and face turning red. "My problem is that I have lived in Pegasus for three years now, and I have seen my share of what sloppy Ancient scientists have left behind." His voice rose and a steep furrow appeared on his forehead. Sam wondered if he was going to have a stroke. "Even if we manage to fix the shield generator in time, there is no way to tell if it won't blow up half of the planet anyway. Dangerous exotic particles – that ring a bell?"

Sam threw her hands up. "We have to try, or we're--"

"Dead, yes, I'm aware of that, thank you." The cynicism in his words was like acid. As if catching himself, he grimaced and wiped sweat off his forehead. It left a dirty smear over his brows where the sand mingled with the moisture. "You don't know what it's like to live every day rationing every erg of energy and always know it is never enough. To know that if you just had a ZPM you could put up the shield and save ..." he trailed off, looking toward the solar cell array in the distance. He looked pained.

Sam swallowed hard and finally got it. This wasn't about what was technically possible and what had to be done. McKay knew as well as her that there was no other chance. But for McKay, this was like asking a famine victim to throw good food into the garbage.

"Look, McKay, I know--"

"Let's get back to work," he interrupted her. His voice was professional, as though he was trying to wipe out her memory of his latest words. "There's half a planet to save." He dropped back in the sand and pushed under the console again.

***

The taller, more important of the houses looked like disformed beehives – the house flat and square, superimposed with a large, tapered cupola in a dirty ochre that, over the years, had adapted to the colour of the desert around it.

They stepped through the narrow door one after the other and Teyla was struck by the sudden blindness she had often experienced moving indoors on desert worlds. She closed her eyes for a few moments, allowing them to get used to the different light in the blessedly cool interior.

What she saw surprised her. Even though the inside was covered in multicoloured carpets, it had nothing of the simpleness that often accompanied dwellings like this. The insides of the turrets as well as the walls were smooth and white. Bounds book lined the walls and sparse bits of simple technology – a clock and a barometer – stood on display close to what looked like the representative area of the room. The Ancestral database had not told them much about Alniyat. When the Ancestors had left Pegasus, Alniyat had been right in the middle of the Wraith's favourite hunting ground. Looking around her now, she was surprised to find the people of this world to be as advanced as they were.

"So, you're the one with the pretty blue prints, right?" Vala walked over the thick carpets with an exaggerated swagger that had Teyla rolling her eyes. She rolled them some more when she realised that John's gaze was very much caught not by the elder handling the blue prints, but by that swagger. Teyla cleared her throat.

"Our friends tell us that you were the one who requested our assistance?" she asked, keeping her body language open but not submissive. Giving away that they had nothing to barter for except for Colonel Carter's and Rodney's expertise would not do at all. They had too much to lose here. She would, as John often put it, play this one close to her chest. For this, she was almost glad that Vala was distracting John. It would make her work a lot easier.

The city's mayor, Harran, a tall, grey haired man with an amount of lines on his face that was seldom seen in Pegasus societies, inclined his head and gestured toward the other side of the room where carpets in varying deep shades of red indicated a sitting area. The smell of dry wool and spices touched her senses. It struck Teyla again how big this house was – it had looked tiny from the outside, but its looks were deceiving. The way from where they were standing now to where Vala was just stopped from getting closer to an adorned wooden chest by a short, broad-chested man was long enough so that Teyla could not hear what was being spoken between Vala and the guard anymore.

"Please," Harran said. "Sit and have tea with me." He indicated for the to choose their seats in a wide circle around the elevated cushion near the wall. "And," he smiled and nodded his head toward Vala and the guard, "tell your friend to join us."

The carpets were soft and yielding to the desert sand underneath them as they sank down on them.

Teyla crossed her legs, watching as the young man shepherded Vala toward them. She beamed a smile at them all as she approached and then took her seat right next to John, close enough to touch. Teyla narrowed her eyes for a moment, but saw John's attention on Harran instead of Vala. She chided herself for not putting more trust in him.

Harran clapped his hands and Teyla heard the silvery tinkle of glass on metal. Behind John, a man and a woman in off-white tunics appeared, the man holding a metal tray with slim, sturdy glasses, the woman carrying a tall teapot. They approached with the small, busy steps of people used to serving. Teyla knew that it still surprised John and Rodney, but she had learned to accept servants. On many worlds, servants were not treated as badly as the ones John had told her about from Earth. Of course, there always were exceptions, but those two, neither young nor old, their faces weathered by the sun and their hands brown and dry, didn't walk with the flair of the suppressed. Alniyat, as Teyla had learned, had voluntary attendants, not forced ones. It still was a concept that was hard to understand for John. She saw it in the way his jaw tensed as the man went to his knees next to Harran. The woman remained standing. Next to her, Ronon scratched his beard, then crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for the things to come. He did not care for tea, Teyla had found that out the hard way when she had offered him to join her for a cup very early on, but he had been on too many worlds to refuse something that was so clearly a traditional greeting. The man lifted the silver tray and the rustling of Harran's heavy tunic almost drowned out the sound of the glasses tinkling with the man's movement as Harran raised his hands in an encompassing gesture. Out of the corner of her eye, Teyla saw Vala straighten her back and settle her hands on her knees. This was interesting. The other woman obviously was familiar with rituals like this as well.

"We welcome new friends and trading partners," Harran said, almost sounding as though he were intoning a chant, "may their journey be blessed, their returns many and their skies be calm."

With Harran's hands still raised in a blessing, the woman lifted the lid of the ornate silver teapot, wafted the steam in the direction of each person sitting in the circle, then lowered the lid again and began pouring the hot amber liquid into the glasses in a graceful arch from high above them.

Harran lowered his hands again, waiting for the woman to finish her elegant task. She handed each one of them a glass of the spicy tea with a bow. Harran nodded at both servants, allowing them to leave.

"To new friends," Harran said again, lifting his glass.

John raised his glass as well, tipping it at Harran in a greeting. "New friends."

The skin around Harran's eyes crinkled hundredfold in a smile at John's informal reply. Teyla saw Vala tugging John's hand back down and smiled as well. This only confirmed her earlier assessment – Vala was definitely not a stranger to those kinds of talks and rituals.

"I see you have not brought all of your acquaintances," Harran observed after taking a sip of the tea. He spoke to her, not to John, and Teyla was glad that for once, she would not have to explain why it was her handling the negotiations and not the leader of their team.

"Dr. McKay and Colonel Carter are already working at the power storage device," Teyla explained. "We thought it wise to start working on the problem immediately, even before we came to see you." She paused. "I understand your call for help was quite urgent."

"The Ancestral field hides many things we do not fully understand." Harran inclined his head, watching her over the rim of his glass. The steam obscured his eyes for a breath when he took a sip. "Our searchers for Ancestral relics have only recently found out how big it truly is after the last sandstorm."

"We can help you understand," John chimed in. The implied _at a price_ was so obvious in his voice that Harran smiled again.

"Understanding the Ancestors takes time," Harran replied, resting his back against the carpet on the wall and letting his smile grow wider.

Teyla felt uneasy with this smile and the serenity Harran exuded. He was relaxed and fully in control of the situation, even the mention of the danger the city and this whole planet was in did not seem to bother him. John was no match for this man, Teyla realised. She had learned early on in her trading relationships that the bigger someone's smile, the sharper his knife was in the end. This would not be easy, and if John showed the least bit of impatience, their cause would be lost.

She took a sip of the tea and returned Harran's smile. "Colonel Sheppard's people have studied the ways and the sciences of the Ancestors for a long time. They will be able to help you with the malfunctioning device."

"Our researchers will be grateful."

John fidgeted. His glass was already empty and he placed it in front of him on the carpet, where it dropped to the side and rolled against his knee. He picked it up only to have it fall again. A third time, and he cursed softly under his breath. Ronon made a noise that was far too close to a snicker for her taste. Teyla fought a wince and barely kept herself from clenching her hand round the glass. She respected John Sheppard in many ways and considered him and Ronon as her closest friends, but she often had the wish to send them both out during difficult negotiations such as this one. John had not liked the idea of leaving Rodney alone at the power storage device with Colonel Carter, and he was anxious to get out of the negotiation, more restless than usual.

"Tell us about those pretty blueprints your researchers have found, then," Vala broke the silence and all Teyla wanted to do was drop her head into her hands and groan. If she had thought Vala would be acquainted with the rules of trading, she had been mistaken. Her and John together made for a terrible duo.

Harran laughed, a laugh as rough as the desert. "We should wait for our other trading partners to arrive before we begin those talks."

"Other trading partners?" Something flashed in Vala's eyes and Teyla could not blame her for frowning. This was the first time Teyla heard about other trading partners as well, and a niggling suspicion in the back of her mind insisted that this negotiation was about to become even more difficult.

She was proven right when the door to the hall opened with a squeak and a man stepped inside. He, too, waited for a few moments, letting his eyes adjust to the dim light in the hall. It gave them all enough time to study him – the cut and colour of the uniform, the familiar cap, the clumsy but deadly gun...

John was on his feet and at attention within seconds, as was Ronon. "What the hell is a Genii doing here?" John hissed.

The Genii – a short, plump man with hair pale enough to almost look white and with a face red from the sun – turned toward the voices and stopped short for a second.

"Well, well. Colonel Sheppard."

***

"I need you to bypass the safety protocols so we can initiate a direct connection between the shield generator and the energy storage. As you saw, it uses high-temperature superconductors that apparently have been manufactured to withstand desert temperatures. Our problem is--

"The transformer," Sam finished.

"Exactly. We don't want the energy transformed. We want it--"

"All to go into the shield generator, and not via the transformer, yes, McKay, I know," Sam told him with a mixture of sympathy and exasperation. It was good being on the same page, finally. What they were looking at wasn't easy, but far from impossible. Sam clenched and unclenched her hands, relieving some of the access adrenaline. They'd make it. Sure, they'd shoot a valuable piece of Ancient technology to all hell along with it, but the people on this planet would be saved.

McKay craned his neck and shot a quick grin at her. "I knew why I wanted you on this mission."

"_You_ wanted me? Here I thought I offered." The banter was well-known and comfortable, allowing her to work even while talking. She bent over her laptop and began searching for the schematics to the transformer and its connections, hoping there would be files appended directing her to the safety protocols programmed to deal with it. The keys under her fingers sounded faintly raspy instead of clacking and she winced. Sand had found its way into the keyboard already.

There were ripping and scratching noises – fingernails on metal, making Sam shiver despite the heat - coming from under the console. "Elizabeth told you about the mission, didn't she?" His voice sounded flat from the effort of both talking and prying the coverings loose. "Why do you think she did that?"

Sam frowned at the read-out before answering. "Because she wanted the best scientist for this problem?"

"Scientists plural. Since she already had the best."

"Oh, please, McKay, don't--"

"Watch for the flux creep," he cut her off. "This whole effort will be good for nothing if the flux creep represses critical current density or the critical field."

"I checked the superconductors earlier on – they're made of ceramic – impure enough to allow flux pinning."

From under the console, McKay snorted. "If Sheppard finds out about this conversation, I'm dead."

"Flux capacitor?" Sam asked with a sympathetic grimace as numbers raced over the screen embedded in the console. Her fingers flew over her keyboard trying to keep up.

More ripping noises came from under the console, more vehement this time. "Fifteen times since we arrived in Atlantis. _Fifteen_."

Sam grinned, tapped the screen and was glad once more that she had insisted on Daniel teaching her basic Ancient. "And you still haven't seen the light?"

McKay's foot jerked in the sand, projecting contempt. "Have you?"

Sam pondered lying just to needle him, but decided against it, smiling still. "No."

As they worked, the heat actually grew worse. Their water supply was coming to an end, despite the bottles the others had left behind for them. Sam handed McKay the last bottle when he pushed out from beneath the console with a groan. That was good timing. She was done with the bypass program and needed to work on the crystals next, to take McKay's place under the console.

"I bet Jackson would have had a field day here," McKay said as he looked over the desert and the impressive mountains in the far distance. He sipped some water.

Sam bit back a grin over the accuracy of his statement. "You think so?"

McKay rolled his eyes at her sarcasm but didn't respond to it in another way. "All this sand and the heat and the dust and the sweat and--" He ran a hand through his hair with a disgusted huff. "God, I need a shower."

Sam couldn't help but mutter: "You really do." She felt filthy, too, sweat soaking her shirt and sand under her clothes, itching and burning. She wasn't fond of desert planets. Never had been.

"Come on, McKay," she said with put upon cheer, just to rile him and distract herself from the stubborn wire that just wouldn't connect. "We'll be done with this soon, and we both know it could have been worse."

The side of his mouth turned down in a moue of distaste as he frowned down at her. "How?"

Sam shrugged. "We could have been in a sandstorm."

His eyes flickered to the horizon, then back to her and widened. "Oh, you didn't."

Sam rubbed her forehead and frowned. "What?"

"Tell me you didn't just say that." His eyes were large and his gaze still glued to the horizon.

Sam gave a short laugh. "Don't tell me you're superstitious, McKay."

"What? No!" He crossed his arms over his chest. "No."

She rolled her eyes. "Then what's your problem?"

He didn't answer her. His eyes flickered back to the desert beyond the transparent partition. A breeze sent sand drifting against it with a silvery hiss.

Sam let go of the wires she was holding and pushed herself up. Sand slipped from underneath her knees. An unpleasant prickling that didn't come from the sand under her collar began to move up her spine and to her neck.

"What?" she asked when she straightened next to him and looked in the same direction he was.

Far in the distance, the horizon was no longer blue. A sickly yellow cloud reached from the ground to the sky, billowing and boiling. Wind moved against the partition again, the hiss of sand against glass now more pronounced.

"This is not good," McKay muttered.

***

This was heading for disaster at the speed of a Dart. No matter what the Genii wanted here, she needed to get John out of the hall as soon as possible before he made an irreparable mistake.

John gave the Genii one of his most insincere smiles, caught in a staring contest.

"I assume you already know out good friend Korben, then, Colonel Sheppard?" Harran asked, drawing the attention back to him.

"John." Teyla rose before John could answer and inclined her head toward Harran. "Please, mayor Harran, excuse us for a moment."

Harran nodded and gestured for her to do as she pleased.

The conversation with Ronon was silent – stay here and watch the Genii. Intimidate him if necessary. She didn't wait for his reply.

The Genii took a seat next to Vala, smiling the smile of the untrustworthy. Teyla walked over the carpets toward where John was standing with his hands resting on his P-90. Calm. Oh, he might have appeared calm to Harran, but she had known John for too long. When she touched his arm to guide him out of hearing distance, his muscles were tense. He was restless, as he always was when they met the Genii, and John Sheppard was already a bad enough companion during regular trading negotiations. A nervous John Sheppard ...

"Colonel Sheppard!" Vala's voice disrupted their silent conversation. John's hand tensed on his P-90. Teyla turned around and saw that amidst the short commotion over the appearance of the Genii, Vala had risen as well and was not only walking between the artefacts, but was also running her hands over the various boxes and devices as she sauntered through the room.

"Those are very fine boxes you have here, Harran," she said throwing a smile in the mayor's direction. Teyla had to fight the grimace forming on her face. "Are you sure we can't come to an agreement about this one here, for example? I could get you a whole shipment of – hey!" The attempt at convincing the mayor ended in an undignified squeak as the young guard who had removed Vala from the artefacts before picked her up and walked her over to where John and Teyla were standing, watching. He dropped her back on her feet with a huff.

Teyla could not help her glare even as she saw John grin and Ronon relax again.

Vala did not appear amused by this failure of her female charms at all. "I could steal the damn blueprints and we'd all be out of this place in time for lunch," she hissed.

John looked speculative enough to make Teyla raise an eyebrow at him. "John?"

"She has a point."

Teyla could not believe her ears. After all that had happened on previous missions because the men had been too impatient, John now suggested that stealing from a trustworthy trading partner was the right course of action? Teyla schooled her face into a mask of calm, pondered her options for a few blinks of an eye. Then smiled the smile she knew intimidated John, the one with the raised eyebrow and the false cheer. "Why don't you take her away from here, John," Teyla said, her smile widening. It was very satisfactory to see both John and Vala pale. "And stay away. With her."

Vala crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her eyes. "There really is no one with a sense of adventure and easy fun in this galaxy, either."

Teyla let her smile grow wider, even as she could feel it becoming icy. It had the desired effect on John.

"Ronon stays with you," John said, his voice not allowing a compromise.

Teyla inclined her head. She kept her wish about Ronon leaving the negotiations as well to herself. She knew how to handle Ronon. Handling John was the problem here. And John knew.

"Very well."

His shoulders tense and his eyes sharp in the shaft of light streaming in from the chimney, John turned from Teyla to Vala.

"We should do some recon." And, without another word, John reached for Vala's arm and pulled her toward the exit.

Over her surprise of having won John over so easily, Teyla heard a litany of: "Hey, what are you – can't just go and leave them to it – would have been much better suited to--" until they had finally closed the door behind them.

Teyla closed her eyes in a brief moment of relief. Two problems less. She only hoped that Ronon, who was standing behind the Genii now with his hand surreptitiously resting on his gun's hilt, would not be fooled into comparing his strength with the Genii.

She threw him a warning glance, then returned to her position across the Genii.

Harran folded his hands in his lap and smiled at them. "Can we continue, then?"

***

Sam narrowed her eyes, watched the cloud moving closer with the slowness of a leviathan. Her hands turned clammy despite the heat. She scanned the horizon, quickly calculating how much time they'd have left. The slowness was deceptive; she had learned that the hard way on Abydos. Memories tried to surface. She pushed them down.

"We have about half an hour before it hits," she said, nudging McKay's arm before bending down to the wiring again.

McKay didn't argue. He tore his gaze away from the shifting cloud and got back to work without another word. It spooked and reassured her at the same time.

They wouldn't make it that fast and they both knew it. But they'd do their damnedest to get as much done as possible. Looking at McKay's bowed back and the way his lips thinned as he concentrated on ensuring the energy flow from the power storage to the shield generator, Sam was suddenly glad he was with her.

"Hah!" McKay exclaimed in a distinct _Eureka_ tone of voice.

Sam looked up from the console and straightened her back. "You've got it?"

"Well, I still need to initialise the process, which means I'll need to hack the command codes to override the normal energy flow rate." His voice was fast and a little muffled from under the console. His legs, sticking out, bounced, working out a kink.

Sam nudged him with her boot. "What do you think I've been doing here the entire time?"

"Oh." He slid out from under the console. "Right."

Sam narrowed her eyes. He hadn't forgotten what she'd been working on. He was buying time. Still trying to find a way to stop them from wasting a breathtaking amount of energy for something that was utterly useless.

"There is no way around this," she said quietly.

His eyes flashed at her, his face defensive. "I didn't say I was looking for one."

"Please, McKay." Sam knew the earlier look on his face too well from her own to buy any of this. "Do you really think I wouldn't rather conserve the energy somehow than use it to power up a shield that will ultimately fail?" She crouched next to him. "We don't have the time for alternatives. Our team doesn't. These people don't. And that storm won't wait for us."

McKay scrubbed his hands over his face, back bowed. "All that energy," he groaned. "10000 years of energy storage. If I knew a way to recharge ZPMs, if I had the time to make it work, it would have been enough for five. Maybe even six. Think of what we could have done, how long Atlantis could have--"

"Rodney, stop." Sam touched her hand to his shoulder gripping it tight. "It's no use." She knew the agony of losing something as big as this. Knew it all too well. She also knew that the only way to deal with it and not go insane with what ifs was to soldier on, not look back, just do the job.

He raised his head and looked at her for a long time, allowing her to see the despair over the sheer waste of possibilities. "Well," he said finally, a wry smile on his lips. "At least I'll be saving your behind as well as theirs. Though theirs are not as pretty as yours."

She whacked the back of his head, not hiding the laugh that bubbled up. "McKay!"

He straightened, dusted sand off his knees. "Well, then. Let's start saving asses."

"We should be well away from here when the shield builds up. The massive energy burst is likely to fry the generator half way. I don't want to be here when that happens." Sam slipped the comm off her ear, looked at it while biting her lower lip, then bent over her laptop, her fingers resting on the keyboard.

"Neither do I," McKay agreed. "We should--"

"Jury rig it so we can start it remotely?" She raised her head and smiled at him, indulgent and wry. "Gee, I wonder why I didn't think of that."

McKay crossed his arms in front of him, glaring. "Mocking. How very original."

Sam shrugged and let the smile slide into something more comfortable. "Cover up the console again so the sandstorm doesn't damage your rewiring. I'll take care of this."

***

"Oh, Colonel Sheppard, seriously, you could have just let me steal it, everything would have been so much easier--"

Sheppard continued to pull her alongside him, much like Daniel did. Did all Ta'uri men do this? It was incredibly irksome. Vala wrestled her arm loose, then crossed both arms over her chest and stopped dead in her tracks.

Sheppard stopped in the middle of the marketplace as well, turning to face her. "Easier?"

"Of course. No one would have noticed and we all would have been off this sad little desert planet before dinner."

"It was lunch before."

"What does it matter which meal we manage to eat as long as we get anything to eat that isn't covered in sand?"

"They would have noticed."

Vala laughed, short and sharp. "You don't know me."

"They would have noticed eventually."

"After we would have been far away from here, so what--"

"And what if Rodney and Carter wouldn't be done by the time they notice? They'd be paying for our mistake."

"Mistake, is it now? You seemed remarkably interested in the idea while we stood there, talking. And talking. And _talking_." Vala shook her head and gave a frustrated growl. "Didn't it get on your nerves as well? Some things are solved so much easier with a little action and distraction and fraud."

The corners of Sheppard's mouth twitched. He crossed his arms as well and cocked his head to the side, barely noticeable. But enough to tell her –

"You are a sneaky man, Colonel Sheppard."

He smirked. "Just, ah, call me John."

"John, then." She beamed at him. There was a kindred spirit there, she could feel it. She uncrossed her arms, stepped next to him and insinuated her arm under his. "So, tell me, John, what can you show a girl around here?"

He grinned at her again, an eyebrow twitching. "There would be this superb market place with everything the classy woman of today could want. Including--" he pointed at one of the dusty brown booths selling what looked like yellow lumps of deformed clay, "whatever that is. Looks like it'd be good for a facial, though."

"How would you know?"

"Oh, you know, as a man of today, you have to be up to date to that sort of thing."

"Yellow lumps of clay."

"Especially yellow lumps of clay."

Vala gave a startled laugh and closed her hand tighter around Sheppard's biceps. The black t-shirt had ridden up and exposed warm, slightly damp skin with a soft covering of hair that Vala itched to run her fingers through.

"So, what else would you show the classy woman of today?"

Sheppard's gaze roamed the marketplace. It wasn't big, had only about ten booths that were nestled against the narrow houses. All of them had wooden shutters that could be lowered – in case of a sandstorm, Vala realised. Some of them were selling fruit, others spices, then there was pottery, things that looked like – ew – dried lizards and various other dubious dried meats, light linen clothes in bright colours, carpets as well as bread in all shapes and forms. In the middle of the marketplace stood an open booth that was selling some kind of stew be the smell of it. A long line was forming in front of it. It included two men she had seen before. They watched her and Sheppard as they walked closer.

"How about I take show the classy woman of today some of the more interesting clothes on sale?"

Vala patted his arm. "That's really charming, but I think I'll pass."

"I really think I should show you the clothes."

"And I really think –" Vala spotted the two men that had inched closer with a dreadful sense of stealth. "Oh." She leaned closer to Sheppard. His height made it no problem for her to whisper in his ear: "Do we have to run?"

Sheppard leaned in as well, giving them the cover of a couple, fresh in love. Oldest ruse in the world, but somehow it always worked. "Those two," he indicated the two men in local clothes who were still coming closer in their demented idea of stealth, "aren't the brightest crayons in the box, and if you were Teyla, I'd say no, but I have no idea how you fight."

Vala gave him the best smile in her repertoire, planted a kiss on his cheek and extracted her arm from his. "Why don't you find out?"

***

"That is a very interesting premise, Teyla Emmagen," Harran said. He laced his fingers in his lap and looked thoughtful, attentive but sad.

They had been talking for the better part of an hour now and Teyla still had no feeling for this negotiation, did not know if Harran was with her or against her. He gave no clear statements, had pushed aside her offer as well as Korben's. The twinkle in his eyes never quite left, even when he was looking sad, and Teyla could not help the feeling that he was not interested in the outcome of the negotiation at all. Harran simply enjoyed bartering.

Next to her, Ronon started to grow restless, he absentmindedly trailed the gun belt slung around his hips and stroked index and middle finger over the end of the gun. Harran's gaze darted toward him more than once, and Korben began to shift nervously. Teyla suppressed a smile. Under normal circumstances, she would have told Ronon to stop it, but he was not doing it intentionally, and that made the effect even more valuable.

Teyla looked at the watch she wore as standard mission gear. John and Vala Mal Doran she was not worried about, but Rodney and Colonel Carter... They were capable scientists, Rodney knew how to handle himself in a crisis and Colonel Carter was military, but Teyla felt uneasy leaving them alone for so long. She knew Rodney. When he was intent on solving a problem, he forgot the world around him. And from what he had told Teyla about Colonel Carter, she was very much like Rodney in that regard. Someone had to be there to watch their backs. It was time to steer this negotiation in the direction she wanted, not the one that amused Harran.

"Allow me," Teyla addressed Harran, "to contact our scientists in order to validate their success in solving your problem. Maybe that will aid your decision."

Korben huffed and was about to say something when Harran unlaced his fingers and gestured toward Teyla: "Very well. I am curious to find out how they are faring in solving what our scientists could not."

Teyla touched her comm, switching to the frequency Rodney and Colonel Carter were using. "Doctor McKay."

There was static for a while, then Rodney's voice came over the comm, distant and distorted. "Not now, I'm busy."

"I was wondering if you could update us on your progress. Surely you must be nearly done?"

More static answered her, and the sound of wind blowing. "--rly done, are you --azy?" Hissing and crackling ripped Rodney's voice away for long seconds. "-- entire thing -- about to -- up and there is a--"

"Yes, Doctor, thank you, that is wonderful news."

The outrage in Rodney's voice was audible despite the bad connection. "What -- make you smoke, didn't you -- what I just--"

"McKay," Colonel Carter's voice came on the comm as well, tinny and distant, interrupting Rodney's tirade. "Play along." Then, addressing Teyla: "-- doing well, Miss --. -- can tell the mayor -- done in -- hour."

Teyla nodded and smiled in Harran's direction. "I will gladly tell him, Colonel Carter."

Rodney's next sentence was barely understandable anymore, static and the blowing of wind against the small microphone made most words unintelligible. "If -- sandstorm -- kill us first--"

"Sandstorm?" Teyla echoed. Sharp, metallic tasting worry made it hard to breathe for a second. Neither Colonel Carter nor Rodney were equipped for a sandstorm. Ronon tensed beside her, rising to his feet.

She missed Rodney's reply, for at her exclamation, Harran moved forward, clapping his hands. At the far side of the hall, a door opened and an elderly man stepped in, quietly, quickly, nothing more than a shadow in the twilight. He halted next to Harran, bowed forward. Harran and he exchanged a few quick words, then the man leaned closer, whispering in Harran's ear. A steep furrow appeared over Harran's nose, then he clapped his hands again.

"Tell them to finish what they can," he addressed Teyla in what was nothing short of an order, "I will send people to guide them back to the city. Sandstorms out here are far too dangerous for them to remain in such an exposed area."

"We'll go with them," Ronon declared. Teyla, not normally one for rash decisions, rose as well. "They are our friends. If they are in danger, we must help them."

"And get lost in the sandstorm as well?" Korben mocked.

Ronon turned on his heel and glowered at the seated Genii, his teeth bared. "Got something to say?"

Teyla took a sharp breath as she saw Harran's displeasure over the tone of the situation. She placed her hand on Ronon's elbow, not saying anything. Under her fingers, Ronon's muscles were tense, ready to pounce. The nervous energy of an angry, caged beast radiated off him. Korben just grinned up at them, masking the fear that was visible in the widening of his eyes.

"You will stay here," Harran said, diverting their attention back to him. "All of you. My people are accustomed to those sandstorms and know how to bring back cattle that got lost in sandstorms. They will bring back your friends as well."

"They're not cattle," Ronon rumbled.

A broad smile lightened Harran's features and threw his face into hundreds of small wrinkles. "How very astute, my friend."

Teyla closed her hand around Ronon's arm, digging in her fingertips. '_Sit down, _' she pleaded quietly, '_just sit down_.' She liked it no more than Ronon did that they could not go and help bring Rodney and Colonel Carter back, but Harran was right. Out there, they would not be of any help to them.

She answered Harran's smile and sat back down on the cushioned floor, her legs crossed under her. It was pure relief that made her close her eyes briefly when Ronon followed her lead. When she re-opened them, Harran said: "Meanwhile, let us continue our negotiation. Tell me, Teyla Emmagen, why should we give you the blueprints you desire and not Galen Korben?"

Teyla breathed deep.

***

Vala stepped out into the main alleyway between the booths. "Hello, boys," she said, smiling broadly at the baffled men she had last seen before they entered the town hall for the negotiations. "It's nice to meet you again. How are you this fine day?"

After that, it was all too easy. Her fist shot forward, connecting with the first man's face with a crack, breaking skin and bone and sending him stumbling backwards. Ignoring her hurting first, she spun around, her foot coming up in a swift, hard kick to the balls of the second man. He howled in pain, doubling over, white as ashes. A small cloud of dust rose from where he fell forward, moaning in pain.

Vala turned to where she had left Sheppard, a grin spreading over her entire face.

"That all you can do, girl?" Vala whirled back around. The first guy had risen, wiping his mouth and spitting blood. His teeth bared, he advanced, now truly angry. Before she had time to think about a strategy, he was there, fists flying in rapid staccato, lashing out, using brute force with unpleasant efficiency. There were no fine, choreographed combinations, he was simply angry, snarling and spitting blood from her initial blow as she worked to dodge his wild strikes, broken teeth far too close to her face for her liking. If he kept driving her backwards this way, she'd have no room to retaliate.

Taking a step back for better leverage, he swung a roundhouse punch at her. Instinctively, she blocked it, driving her arm upwards in a bar, before gripping him by the wrist, snapping her free fist into his floating ribs and finally slamming it down hard into the nerves embedded in the soft tissue just below his elbow. He howled in pain as her fist connected with his exposed pressure point. Hearing the elbow joint crack, she didn't stop, needing to make sure he stayed down this time. Rapidly, she yanked the broken arm so he fell against her, before driving the blade of her elbow into the right side of his neck.

Breathing hard, she gazed down at him on the ground, a dirty heap, no longer moving. The noises of the marketplace began to come floating back, and she began to look up, seeking out Sheppard, pleased with her moves.

It was this second of glee that cost her. Just as she was turning around, the second guy, no longer clutching himself on the ground, moved in and pulled her back against his chest, his arm coming up tight across her throat. Vala choked as his forearm crushed her windpipe. She kicked and bucked, clawing at his arm and tried to throw him off, but only managed to give him tighter purchase, yanking her backwards off her feet, his arm bones cutting deep into her throat. Stars began to dance in front of her eyes. Blackness hovered at the edge of her line of vision. On what little breath she could still draw, she smelt the man's rank sweat and blood and the scent of his leather gloves.

"Feel like fighting?" the man's voice rasped into her ear, his harsh breath stirring her hair in moist gusts. While she still tried to claw at his face, she thought that she should have kicked him in the balls harder, damn it. "Then fight."

The other guy was suddenly in front of her, cradling his broken arm but grinning wide and nasty and just south of insane. He should have been half-dead after the blow she had dealt him. Vala fought a shudder. "Yeah, fight." The one fist he could still use landed in her solar plexus with a sickening thud and an explosion of pain.

Unable to double over while still being in a choke-hold, Vala's legs tried to curl up protectively, bile rising in her stomach from the impact. She couldn't go any farther, couldn't breathe against the pain because there was no air left in her lungs. Her fingers, still scrabbling desperately recognised the losing battle first - they began to grow numb and slow. Where the hell was Sheppard? Was this his idea of a fair fight? Of backup?

"Hey, ah, guys?" Vala went limp in the choke-hold, her vision greyed out, only able to locate the source of the voice by sound. "How about some stew before you beat up the lady?"

She felt the other whirl around, air moving against her face. The next moments were filled with the wet sounds of liquid hitting a body, a scream of pain and the deep, resounding noise of metal hitting a skull. The man holding her gave a growl, let her go and threw himself toward the source of the sound.

Vala doubled over coughing and gasping, blinking fast as the blood began to rush back to her head, but she managed to raise her head just in time to see Sheppard calmly taking his gun and shooting the guy who was in mid-jump in the leg. The man slumped with a cry of pain and dropped at Sheppard's feet.

Sheppard rapped the knuckles of his left hand against the cast-iron pan in his hand and pulled an apologetic grimace. "I had to pay for the stew first. Sorry."

"Aaaaaaaaargh!"

Vala put out her leg, stopping the stew-smeared guy who had gotten up again and had been about to attack Sheppard in mid-jump. He stumbled, crashing into an empty booth. He didn't get up anymore this time.

"I had things under control." Vala sat back on her haunches and tried to find a way to laugh while she was still catching her breath.

Behind Sheppard, a knee-high, furry animal with a long bushy tail had begun to lick the remains of the stew from the unconscious man's face.

***

The storm was howling around them by now, dust enveloped them and crept underneath the wet cloths they had bound over their noses and mouths. Sam tasted sand and fought demons.

She had been in many sandstorms during her time with SG-1, but exposure didn't help. The thoughts came, every time the wind ripped at her clothes and whipped into her face. The howling of a storm and the sounds of it hitting large objects and just pushing them over were enough to throw her back to piloting a malfunctioning F-16 and to the feeling of ejecting into a massive storm, being tossed around like a ragdoll without having any clue where up and down were and knowing, rationally, that there was a mere five percent chance of surviving this.

It didn't matter which planet she was on, a storm was a storm, and the fear never failed to have her heart pounding and her scalp prickling. She swallowed hard, grabbed the protective cover tighter and heaved it up. She was glad to have McKay here, all of a sudden. This kind of work went much faster with two people.

A gust hit the transparent partition she was leaning against with a bang. Sam flinched, moved away on instinct and dropped the cover.

"Damn it."

They couldn't afford to lose time now, couldn't afford to have her freak out, because in the end, really, it was blow away or blow up, and she'd rather not die in an explosion from a malfunctioning Ancient solar cell station. The thought was anticlimactic. Though maybe the explosion would stop the storm and wouldn't that be –

"This really bothers you, doesn't it?" McKay's voice, close to her ear and gravelly with too much sand made her flinch yet again.

Sam turned to look at him – close to her, the parts of his face that weren't hidden by the wet bandana looked angry red, contrasting sharp with the whites of his eyes – and found understanding in that gaze, empathy, not mockery. It hardly seemed like a good idea to give Rodney McKay of all people an opening for developing potential weak sides, but he'd been working next to her for the past few hours like a fiend, focused and efficient, and she felt that she owed him the honesty.

"Bad memories."

"Just this cover and we can head back behind the partition and start on the jury-rigging," he yelled against the storm.

Sam nodded, reached for the fallen cover again and lifted it up. Her muscles ached, and the cover should have been too damn heavy to lift it with just two people, but they managed on pure will, anyway.

"Come on," McKay yelled again. "We'd better get this done soon, seeing as I still owe you that beer."

He reached for her, closed his big, dry hand around her sweat-slick one and squeezed for a long moment.

It was in that moment that three figures became visible in the swirling sand. "Oh, great. Now they're turning up. Could have used some help putting this back together before. McKay let go of her hand and began waving wildly. "Here, we're over here, here!" he yelled against the storm.

***

"My coin! My coin!" someone in the crowd yelled.

Sheppard wheeled around. "Tell me you didn't."

Vala opened her eyes wide, feigning innocence. "What?"

"Hold the thief!" The voice grew louder, more agitated.

The coin was warm in her left hand.

"Crap," Sheppard murmured. He gave the market place a quick once-over, then grabbed Vala's wrist and dragged her into the tavern she had spotted when they had entered the market. She only struggled pro forma. If Sheppard wanted to act the alpha male? She didn't mind. She had always considered it cute when men thought they were the strong sex and had to be protective.

"In a hurry?" Vala asked, sliding her hand out of his grip and up his arm.

"I get tired of being locked up," he told her, pushing her hand down and grabbing it, "though you might not believe it. And when I do get locked up, I prefer it to be with McKay or Ronon, since they're good at getting us out. You, I don't know."

"I might not mind being locked up with you," Vala said, giving him one of the best smiles in her repertoire.

"Yeah, see, that's what I'm afraid of."

Vala looked around the room they'd entered, blinking as the dark corners and shadows resolved once her eyes adapted to the lack of light. Okay. This wasn't so bad. She'd been in worse places. The place was packed with big, remarkably unattractive men with paunches and ill-trimmed beards and greasy hair, most of them wearing leather. All of them looking at her and Sheppard.

More than one of them licking his lips.

Vala smiled wide, slung her arm around Sheppard's waist and bumped his hip with hers. "Hello, boys." There was a game she knew how to play. "Let me buy you a drink to celebrate all the beautiful men in this galaxy."

Next to her, Sheppard groaned and grimaced.

***

"This is not negotiable. Our people are helping--"

"They're saving their own behinds, too, so there is little reason to be grateful enough to hand them such a valuable--"

Harran unclasped his hands suddenly and rose, his posture regal and his shoulders stiff. He was radiating displeasure. Teyla straightened her back and let her gaze follow him. The Genii, Galen Korben, was still watching her, and she could not afford showing weakness, now that she had come such a long way already.

"My friends," Harran said, not looking at them. His voice was even but demanding. "It seems that we cannot come to an agreement on either of our terms." He turned, stopping Korben, who had been about to voice an agreement before he even had a chance to begin. "Now that we know your friends are delayed in finishing their work and are be escorted back to the city as we speak, I declare _masa'a_ – a break in trade to clear our heads, during which you can enjoy the hospitality of our city."

Harran's hands opened in a wide, welcoming gesture and he smiled. It did not reach his eyes. Teyla tried to decipher if this was a sign of fatigue or of a hidden scheme, but there was nothing she could do in case Harran was planning on letting the negotiations come to an unsuccessful end. A break was not the worst of ideas, though, Teyla agreed inwardly. They had reached a point at which both sides were adamant and not backing down from their offers and demands. Teyla realised her mistake after contacting Rodney, and was uncomfortable that she had to resort to thinly veiled threats instead of taking her time to find a common ground between her and Harran, to show him that what was beneficial to the Lanteans would also be beneficial to the Alniyat.

Next to her, Ronon stretched his legs. "Great," he said under his breath. "I'm starving."

Harran waited until everyone had risen, then took a step toward Teyla. "Teyla Emmagen." He stretched out his hands, palms up, inviting her to do the same. Teyla followed, and Harran took her left hand between both of his. They were warm and parchment dry, all but swallowing her hand. He inclined his head, giving her a view of his full grey hair and the heavy, ornate weave of his tunic, murmured a few words in his own language, then let go of her and smiled, the skin around his eyes crinkling in a way that made it impossible not to smile back.

He repeated the gesture with Korben and Ronon.

"Our city welcomes you," Harran stated. "You will be served food and drink wherever it pleases you to go."

"When will we finish this?" Korben asked, and Teyla fought a grimace at the sharp tone. The Genii had no respect of Harran, and little intuition when it came to proper conduct.

"We will meet when the mayor calls for us in the late afternoon."

A delighted smile crossed Harran's face. "You know the customs and language of our people well, Teyla Emmagen."

Teyla inclined her head but chose not to answer.

"Do not concern yourself about the well-being of your friends," Harran said, his voice taking on a softer tone. "As I said, I have sent people to bring them back into the city safely. They should arrive soon."

Teyla inclined her head. "Thank you, mayor Harran."

Harran nodded, then dismissed them.

"You speak their language?" Ronon asked after they stepped back into the hot alley.

"I do not." Teyla shadowed her eyes from the sun and looked toward the city's wall. The sky was sickly yellow and the wind already howled. A sharp stab of worry went through her despite Harran's assurance that his people would bring Rodney and Colonel Carter back to the city safely.

"Then how did you--?"

Teyla turned back to Ronon. Her boots created a scratching sound in the hot sand. "I do not know much of the Alniyat's native language, but I always learn a few choice words before going into a negotiation."

Ronon frowned. "Why? The gate provides us with the universal language, so why bother?"

"Courtesy, Ronon," she said, taking her hand down and beginning to scan the streets for signs of Colonel Sheppard and Vala Mal Doran. "You will also notice that a small sign of good will open many doors which may have remained closed otherwise."

Ronon shifted his weight to his other foot, regarding her with a curious expression. A smile began to twitch the corner of his mouth. "That's good."

Teyla smiled at him. "I know."

***

"We have been sent to escort you back to the city. We cannot leave without you," one of the heavily cloaked figures said. From the muffled voice, Sam recognised a man.

"Which part of "not done yet" don't you understand?" McKay snapped.

Sam took a step forward, trying to placate. "You need to give us some more time to fix this. It won't take long."

On her right side, McKay stepped toward the console again, only to be intercepted by another hooded figure. McKay threw his hands up: "Look, don't you get that if we don't fix this right now, this whole thing will blow up?"

"It has not done so before, and we see no reason why it should matter whether or not it is fixed now or later. It can wait until the storm is over."

A prickle of annoyance ran over Sam's scalp. "No, it can't!" She turned away from the Alniyat she'd been talking to and turned toward the other three standing in the background, waiting. "The last sandstorm has uncovered too many of the solar cells and there is too much energy being directed into this installation." They shifted and Sam wasn't sure they really understood where she was going with this. She threw a look at McKay, quenching what he was about to say. "It's like a barrel, once it is full of water, you cannot stop it from overflowing, and even just one drop will cause it to--"

"It does not matter. The sandstorm is by far more dangerous than what can happen here."

"Oh, is that why you were asking us for help?" McKay snapped.

"Your team came here and decided we needed help. We did not ask them to contact you."

"I've had enough of this," McKay cut in. He reached for his comm. "Sheppard, are you there?" On their shared frequency, Sam heard nothing but static. Outside of the partition, the wind howled against the fibreglass. Sand drifted inside. The air was filled with dust even through the wet bandana.

"Sheppard?" McKay's gaze flickered to the four hooded people who were slowly coming closer – unhurried, obviously sure of the sheer power of numbers. It wasn't directly hostile, but she could see the rising panic in McKay's face as he switched frequencies. "Ronon, Teyla?" his voice took on an edge that hadn't been there before.

The Alniyat came closer. Just two more steps. Sam's hand went to her gun. She had no intention of shooting here with all the open wirings, had no wish to destroy all the had managed to far by a stray bullet, but maybe it would be enough to make them think twice. They only meant well. There was no need to hurt them, but, damn it, Sam wished that Ronon and Teyla were here now. She could take them on herself, but the chances of doing damage to the installation were way too high. A little backup wouldn't hurt just about now.

A glance at the read-outs from the energy storage told her that even despite the sandstorm lowering the amount of light reaching the solar cells, their clock was still ticking. They had to finish this and now.

***

"So, Colonel Sheppard." Vala rested her hip against the bar, looking at Sheppard with a bright smile on her face. "Now that we're here already ..."

"Give us a beer," Sheppard ordered the man behind the bar.

"Ale," Vala corrected when the man looked at Sheppard in something resembling indifferent confusion. Then she beamed at Sheppard. "Excellent." Vala slipped onto the high chair next to his, only to find out that it had been nailed to the ground and couldn't be moved closer to Sheppard at all. She gave it a frown, then slid off it again and stepped closer to him again.

"So, just you and me and an ale now," she murmured, letting her hand glide up his thigh.

His head snapped in her direction, pupils dilating slightly, but then he tensed, looked at her hand and back at the tavern. "And whole enraged marketplace population outside trying to find out where we went as well as about 30 guys just salivating to see a show."

He was really worried about the market-place people? Vala smiled. Still a rookie to stealing, then. She petted his arm. "Why don't we give them one, then?"

Sheppard gave a half-shrug. "I'm not into public displays of affection, Vala."

Vala let her shoulders droop. "You're no fun."

He looked offended suddenly. "I can be fun."

Vala raised an eyebrow at him. "Really, Colonel?"

Answering the dare now, he looked her in the eyes, bending closer. His breath was warm on her face. "Oh, believe me."

_Now_ they were getting somewhere. "I require proof," Vala said, flexing her hand on his thigh.

He smiled at her, eyes alight with the challenge. He licked his lips. "Right now?"

"If it doesn't clash with your virtues, Colonel."

His smile became a smirk now. He grabbed her left hand that still clasped the coin. One after the other he settled into a pattern of him running a fingertip over the length of her finger, ending on a little teasing push underneath the pad of hers. His fingertips were rough against her skin as he gently pried her fingers open and Vala felt a pleasant tingling wherever he touched her. Slowly, the coin became visible.

"Innocent until proven guilty?" Sheppard asked, giving her a once-over. "It's a good thing I didn't search you after we left the mayor's house."

Vala swallowed and forced a smile, feeling the small, slick synthetic roll she had stuck in the back of her trousers and under her shirt at the mayor's house. Did Sheppard know? He hadn't said anything before, so this could just be a lucky shot, or another way to flirt. Vala liked the latter option better. She let her smile slide into something more suggestive. "I never said I was innocent."

He took the coin from her, but kept on holding her hand steady. After he had slid the coin to the bartender and ordered something stronger and a more quiet table, he turned back to her.

"I thought you weren't into public displays of affection, Colonel?"

Sheppard moistened his lips again, those distracting, pretty lips, making Vala crave to taste them. He traced his index finger over her palm, slow, with just a hint of his fingernail, before looking back up at her from under his lashes. "I just made sure we got a less public place in here."

Vala felt the heat rise in her cheeks and withdrew her hand; gave a throaty laugh and reached for the tankards as well as the shot glasses. "Well, maybe you're a little fun after all."

They walked over to the small table in the corner where the bartender had pointed them. Vala took in their surroundings, scanning possible exits and counting the men. From the corner of her eye, she could see Sheppard doing the same. A few of the guys still looked in their direction, but most of them had turned back to their ales and their conversations. Apparently, couples coming in here wasn't all that unusual after all. Vala suspected that prostitutes weren't uncommon on this planet as well. And, if her assumption was true, she had all the more reason to play her part well and enjoy teasing the pretty Colonel and enjoying herself a little on the way.

Vala placed her ale and her shot on the wooden table. Next to her, Sheppard slid onto the bench. His face was shadowed under a shaft of light coming from a small shuttered window. Outside, wind pushed against the house and a man from the bar, tall, red-faced and greasy, walked along the windows, closing the shutters. He stopped at their table and leered at Vala while he closed their shutter as well.

"Brought a new one, eh?" he asked Sheppard, his voice slightly slurred.

Vala swung her leg over the bench and settled on Sheppard's lap, facing him and looking straight at him even as she addressed the man. "Yeah, and you can't have her, because he came first." She leaned forward and nuzzled Sheppard's neck before looking back at the man over her shoulder. "Now kindly remove yourself. He--" she nipped at his jaw, "doesn't like strangers for company."

Sheppard tightened an arm around her waist. With the other, he reached for his gun and flicked open the holster on the thigh-strap before he cupped her ass to pull her even closer.

The shutter snapped closed and the man retreated, muttering under his breath.

"That went well," Vala said, wriggling against him to settle in more comfortably.

Sheppard's hand on her ass tightened for a moment, the relaxed and moved away.

Vala's brow creased in a frown. He wouldn't seriously--

"Okay, I think that was convincing enough," Sheppard said, his tone dismissive, his hands gently pushing her away.

His breathing was heavier than before though, and Vala didn't approve of having games interrupted at all. She laced her fingers with his, lifted herself up and squirmed deliberately against him. Sheppard's eyes unfocused for a long moment, his teeth sinking into his lower lip. She ground down again, flexing her thighs, and ... there. It would have been against every law in any universe for a man not to direct to direct stimulation like that. Quetesh had known and taught her well. His fingers flexed against hers.

Vala bent closer, smelling the wonderful earthy scent of a man and bit the side of her lower lip, smiling at him. "I don't think it is," she husked, then let go of his hands and stole a sip from his drink, ignoring her own tankard.

He snatched the tankard from her, taking a deep swig while she ran her fingernails up his side. "Could you stop that?" he hissed at her.

Vala just wriggled again. "Do you really want me to?"

He closed his eyes briefly. "In other circumstances," he said slowly, "No. Here? Now? Yes."

The pout she gave wasn't even fake this time. "You don't know what you're missing."

He took another swig from the tankard. Almost despite himself, he stroked a hand down her thigh. "I've got some idea."

She took the tankard from his hand and whispered against his lips: "Wouldn't you like to know for sure?"

Sheppard took a gulping breath, then turned his head and breathed into her ear: "Let me repeat: I'm not into public sex, Vala."

She moved her hips even closer against his and leaned her head back, exposing her throat to him. "I can do non-public, too."

Sheppard heaved a breath. His hair tickled against her throat, his voice reverberating against her skin when he murmured: "I bet you can."

Vala shivered in delight at the husky tone his voice had taken on: "Oh, you're much more fun than Daniel."

He moved away from her slightly, as though offended by the comparison. But a look to his face showed him giving her a smirk. "Let's save the fun and games for later," he told her, his hand running over her thighs.

Vala laughed, delighted at the course of their game. "I like later." She tapped his arm in impatience: "Right after we get back to Atlantis? We still have a day or two, and those quarters you have seemed really comfortable and well equipped--"

"I think we'll need to stop in for a post-mission exam and debriefing," he told her.

She heaved a put upon sigh and rolled her eyes. "Booo-ring."

He regarded her with a serious, almost wounded expression for a moment, then his resolve broke and he laughed, a raucous, silly sound.

Vala leaned back and mock-pondered her options back on Atlantis. "I could distract them the way I did Sam and McKay."

"You make their lives hell, don't you?" Sheppard grinned at her, clearly imagining her attempting a similar routine on Elizabeth Weir. It only endeared him more to her.

She grinned at him. "It's a gift."

His hand moved up the side of her waist. "Don't stop for me."

Her grin grew wider, almost hurting her cheeks. A thought bubbled up, one she saw reflected in Sheppard's face and the smile slipped from her face.

He reached for his comm.

"I might stop for your team, though," Vala murmured, reaching for her own comm and switching to the same frequency. Despite the fun she had here, Sam and McKay hadn't checked in in too long. "Colonel Carter?" Sheppard asked, quiet and intense, forcing Vala to focus on a crack in the wall rather than Sheppard and his lean body against hers and the temptation of running her hand down that back and lower. Nothing but static answered Sheppard. "Sam?" she tried now, too, but got no answer either.

Sheppard touched his comm again, changing frequencies slightly to compensate for the interferences, now hailing McKay.

"Do you--?" she asked, frowning.

Sheppard shook his head. He adjusted his comm, hailed again, then tensed for a moment. "Teyla?" He paused, a frown creasing his brow. "Where are McKay and Carter?"

Vala had no way of hearing what was said on the other side of Sheppard's connection, but the way his body slowly relaxed against hers told her that things weren't going badly outside.

"All right, you wait for them. We're at the local ..." he looked around, trying to find a proper word to describe the place, "tavern. If there's a storm outside and you're free anyway, come and meet us here when you've regrouped. I'll pay a round. Sheppard out."

"So," Vala said, leaning closer again, "everything okay?"

"Looks that way. Apparently Teyla's bartering has stalled and McKay and Carter are being brought back to the city because there's a sandstorm outside, but, yeah. We're all good."

"Excellent." She reached for the shot glass and handed it to him. "In that case, we should--"

He bypassed the glass, took the tankard and had another sip, then grinned at her. "Relax and wait, yeah."

***

"You will come with us now. I will not tolerate another delay."

The taller one of the Alniyat reached for Sam's arm, clamping his hand around it tight enough to leave bruises.

"Hey!" McKay shouted against the howling of the storm, stepping up in an odd moment of chivalry.

Sam shook her head. "Keep working, McKay, I'll handle this."

"You will not handle anything," another one of the hooded figures said. It was unnerving to not see their faces, just their dark eyes.

McKay appeared torn between listening to her and helping her out. "Move it, McKay, we have about ten minutes until everything goes to hell here."

The grip around her arm became tighter, the Alniyat beginning to pull her away from the console bodily while the other three advanced on McKay.

Sam reacted without thinking, every hour of training with Teal'c springing back without conscious thought. She twisted her arm counter-clockwise sharply, spun, using her momentum to give him a rough shove that sent him crashing into the partition. The partition trembled as he fell against it. The others now turned away from McKay as she had hoped and she found herself facing three opponents. Adrenaline flooding her veins, she pushed back the small, twisting feeling that she might not manage to take them all on without doing damage to the installation. She'd have to.

Sam listened to the rushing of blood in her ears, then threw a fake punch at the first advancing guy. Predictably, he ducked it and in that short moment, she brought up her knee. It hit him squarely in the face with a distinct crunching noise and he fell, unconscious, knocked backwards into the guy standing behind him. They both toppled to the ground in a tangle of limbs.

Sam breathed harsh, raising her fists as the last one standing advanced. He was harder to surprise and she had to block the blows he was raining at her, trying to find an opening, somewhere, anywhere.

In the end, she stumbled and when he reached for her, turned and shoved him off, falling down after him to land with her knee in his stomach, hissing at him to stay put.

There was a minor commotion behind her, a blur of white from the corner of her eye, and then the sickening crunch of metal and plastic before the only thing that was audible was the howling of the wind and her own harsh breathing.

The pause was minute, before she looked up at McKay standing over her with a horrified look on his face, murmuring: "Gross misuse of equipment."

A laptop lay next to her fallen attacker, its casing broken, sand spilling inside.

Sam winced, checked if they were all out for as long as necessary. She hadn't wanted to hurt them, just to buy McKay time. Too bad they hadn't listened when she had first tried to explain. Would have saved them all bruises both to the ego and their bodies, and herself a lot of sand in her underwear.

She dusted the sand off her clothes in a gesture that was futile, considering the sandstorm outside. It didn't matter. "You done?" she asked while trying to catch her breath.

"Two minutes," he called over his shoulder.

"Need help?"

"In getting out of here once this is done, because all I can manage with the comms shot due to the storm is a short time-delay."

Sam leaned against the partition, looking at the unconscious Alniyat on the floor and the sandstorm outside.

Great. They'd be very cooperative once they woke up.

"How short is short?"

"Five minutes, give or take."

Sam's eyes widened. She needed to wake up those guys immediately if they wanted to get out of here alive.

***

Teyla only recognised Rodney by the sound of his voice.

"--still can't believe they had the gall to try and stop us and, oh, god, that laptop will just never be of any use again."

Their appearance would not have given them away. They were clothed in layers of bright coloured textile, wound all around them, even their head and over their faces. When they came closer, Teyla could see their eyes red and the skin around them as well.

Next to her, Ronon stopped short. She saw him narrowing his eyes, then he shifted his weight and crossed his arms over his chest. "Nice outfit, McKay," he said, not bothering to hide a smile.

Under the many layers of fabric, Rodney narrowed his eyes as well and began peeling himself out of them. Colonel Carter did the same, but more slow and methodical, without tangling her hands in the colourful garment.

"Nice of you to finally show up. You wouldn't believe what we--"

"So, you made it?" Ronon asked, not letting Rodney finish.

"Yeah," Carter chimed in, sounding relieved. She was winding the bright blue headdress off, revealing blonde hair that gleamed in the sunlight. "We did."

Rodney turned toward her, hand stopping in mid-pull, and inclined his head. "Almost made it, you mean."

"It worked, McKay, or we'd be toast."

"How do you know there wasn't another delay?" Rodney still fiddled with his garment, trying hard to open the many hooks holding it closed. "There's a sandstorm outside, in case you forgot."

Carter raised an eyebrow, but Teyla saw her fighting a smile. "Your charming outfit makes it hard to forget that."

Rodney stopped fiddling and crossed his arms over his chest as well, involuntarily mirroring Ronon. "You're wearing the same."

Carter's grin went wider. She winked at Teyla before she turned back to Rodney. "Yes. But the difference between you and me is that I make this look good."

Rodney look torn between delight and disgust. "Did you just quote Men in Black on me?"

Teyla laughed. "She did."

Rodney groaned. "I will make sure Sheppard never gets to suggest movies to you anymore."

Teyla heard her laugh echoing off the sloping roofs of the smaller houses. "We are glad you made it back safely."

A sudden, familiar silver-blue hissing noise made them all involuntarily look up at the sky and forget their recent conversations. Teyla heard the people around them in the street gasp. Through the dirty sky, a dome formed over the city, beautiful and majestic, expanded like a balloon, silver lined with sickly yellow and red where the sandstorm broke against it, grew larger, larger, then collapsed when an explosion sounded that made the ground under the city tremble. It was over in a matter of seconds.

Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Rodney's shoulders slump.

"That's it, then," Carter said as she stepped out of the garment. The sand had coloured her cheeks an angry red, but Teyla knew from experience that it would fade within a few hours. Her eyes appeared pained, and Teyla noticed her glancing at Rodney who looked lost. Carter left the garment where it was and walked over to him, squeezing his shoulder. "Another planet saved, Superman," she said softly.

He gave a muffled snort, looked at her with misery etched into the lines around his eyes and mouth. "Delay after all," he said quietly. Carter smiled at him. The rest of their conversation was silent and Teyla looked away, not wishing to interrupt what appeared to be a private moment.

"Speaking of Sheppard," Rodney said when he had managed to pull himself together and peel himself out of his garment as well, "where is he?"

"Tavern," Ronon commented.

Rodney looked around, then huffed when he realised what Teyla and Ronon had figured out a while ago – there were at least five signs leading to various taverns.

John had not said which one he was in, and he was not answering his comm anymore. It was likely it was nothing more than the storm disrupting communications, but Teyla felt increasingly uneasy.

"A tavern. How appropriate."

"Where's Vala?" Colonel Carter asked now, looking around as well.

"With him," Ronon answered.

"Of course she is." Rodney's voice dripped acid.

"We sent them both off together because they were endangering our negotiations," Teyla explained to help save John's reputation. No matter what she thought of Vala Mal Doran and John, Rodney did not need any more ammunition for jokes on John's behalf. Teyla knew that John had not been with a woman since he had come back from the sanctuary. And she knew that if John had sought refuge in a tavern, then there was a good reason for it.

"Of course they did," Rodney and Carter said in unison.

Ronon threw Teyla a glance, communicating amusement with just the twitch of an eyebrow and a slight curl of his upper lip.

"So, which tavern?" Rodney asked.

"I do not know," Teyla admitted. "Ronon and I have looked through two since Colonel Sheppard contacted us, but his comm is not working any longer, so we cannot hail him."

Rodney rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath while he searched through his backpack. With a "Hah!" he pulled out a life signs detector with a flourish. Teyla breathed a sigh of relief. It was good having Rodney back. This would make things much easier.

Carter stepped closer, looking amused. "What are you doing?"

Rodney held the ancient device up. " Life signs detector," he said as if it were the most normal thing he had ever seen.

Carter frowned. "And?"

"And?" Rodney echoed.

Teyla looked up at Ronon who leaned back against a wall and got comfortable for the inevitable explanation about to follow. Teyla smiled.

"You of all people should–" Carter narrowed her eyes and Rodney stopped in mid-sentence. "All right. I modified the detector to track a specific subspace signal, one transmitted from a tiny chip I built based on the transmitters the Wraith use on Runners such as," he inclined his head toward Ronon, "our big friend over there." Teyla saw Carter's eyes widening. "Then I persuaded Carson to insert it under Sheppard's skin the last time they had him unconscious in the infirmary." He snorted and glanced at Teyla, looking for encouragement. "It wasn't all that hard. There's just something about Sheppard that attracts this sort of thing."

Teyla inclined her head and leaned forward as though conspiring with Carter. The other woman was smiling. "It is always Colonel Sheppard," Teyla agreed.

Ronon grunted. "Unless it's McKay. Or McKay and Sheppard."

By now, Colonel Carter was laughing. Rodney whipped around, glaring at her, obviously not happy about her sudden amusement.

"What?" he demanded.

Carter wiped at the tears of laughter pooling in her eyes. "Daniel," she choked out. And then, after a few deep gulps of air: "Could you give me the schematics for that transmitter and tracking device?"

Ronon snorted. Teyla shared a grin with Carter. And, finally, after a long while, Rodney started grinning as well.

***

The fourth tavern finally turned out to be the correct one. The door opened to the outside with a whining creak and when they stepped inside – Ronon first, then Teyla, McKay and herself last - Sam's senses were assaulted by the smell of smoke, cheap alcohol and sweat that appeared to be the same in every single galaxy.

It took her eyes a moment to accept the semi-darkness in here. But, yes, there in a corner were Sheppard and Vala... who was sitting on Sheppard's lap, intently focused nibbling on Sheppard's earlobe. His eyes opened when the noise in the tavern died down upon their arrival and he raised a hand in a feeble wave. McKay groaned. "I can't believe it. What is it with him and pretty Alien babes?"

Sam reached out to whack him on the back of his head for the term he just used.

"No, really," Rodney explained, unperturbed by the cuff. "Chaya Sar, Teer, Mara, now Vala - all the pretty ones, he pulls them like honey." Sam cocked her head and tapped her foot, just looking at him until he trailed off. "You're pretty, too," he back-pedalled. "Beautiful, even. And not alien, and, and whatnot."

She wasn't going to blush. McKay's crush on her wasn't new, so him calling her beautiful wasn't new, either, but still. It never hurt to hear it twice.

His gaze suddenly zoomed in on Sheppard, then back to Sam. "You don't have a thing for him, too, do you?"

"What?" Sam snapped, confused by his line of thinking. "No."

Rodney looked relieved. "Because, you know, same rank, different chains of command -- "

"Different galaxies," Sam added, rolling her eyes. He wasn't honestly thinking ... She gave him a speculative look. You never knew with McKay. He sounded sarcastic by default but she never quite knew when it was for real or if he actually meant things the way he said them. Hard to distinguish. She decided not to go into McKay's jealous streak today and turned back to close the door, again blinded by the brightness outside, and almost shutting it in the face of someone walking in behind her.

"Sorry," she said, a reflex more than a serious apology.

"I bet you are, pretty." The reply came, voice oily and suggestive in a way that made Sam's stomach turn and her hand itch to just lash out.

She forced herself to take a deep breath and ignore him. Her eyes were adapting again, and she watched Ronon and Teyla stepping farther into the tavern. Heads turned as Teyla walked along the lines of drinkers at the bar, the odd, low whistle sounded. Farther back, Sam could see Vala sliding off Sheppard's lap and Sheppard trying to get his long legs out from under the table.

It was in that moment, when she was trying hard to ignore the guy who'd been stepping in after her that she felt hot, moist breath against the back of her neck and a hand sliding around her waist, while another was planted firmly on her ass. "How much for the evening, pretty?"

Sam whirled, and faced the man – a short, blond guy with unpleasantly piercing grey eyes, dressed no different from the other men in the tavern, but somehow carrying a different, more malignant air around him. Her battle-stance was ready, every muscle in her body tense, but McKay was faster, pushed her to the side and stepped between her and the guy.

"Take your hands off my wife or I swear you'll never use those hands for touching anything anymore." He sounded so menacing that Sam didn't even pay as much attention to him coming to her rescue with the oldest trick in the book.

The guy just threw his head back and laughed, advancing again. "We've seen another working girl in here today already. They always come here when they want to pick up new customers."

"Well, sorry," McKay said while sliding a hand around Sam's waist, "but she's not a working girl, she's my wife, you oaf, so just go and drown your remaining two braincells far, far away from her."

Sam was too perplexed to not play along when he pulled her to him with the arm he had around her waist, their hips bumping together. She tried to fake a smile.

A snort. "You tryin' to tell me that you and--" A greasy-haired guy from the bar, his nose already red from drinking, jabbed his thumb in McKay's direction. "and him?" He gave a roaring laugh that somehow sounded like a dying camel. The rest of the men in the tavern chimed in, some of them all but doubling over, wiping tears from their eyes.

Sam shifted her weight from one foot to the other and crossed her arms in front of her. Next to her, she felt McKay stiffen. A stab of resentment made her clench her teeth.

The intensity of her antipathy toward these men surprised her. Of course, men in bars or taverns like this were all the same, on every planet and obviously in every galaxy. It was nice to have universal constants when it came to humans. That alone wouldn't have bothered her, she could have handled herself. But after trying and failing to get to her, the bar-fly had roped the other men into his obvious attempt to start a fight, and they were all playing along, now picking on the weakest link - not intellectually, obviously - of the chain and she'd hated that kind of behaviour ever since she'd been a teenager. To her left, she saw Ronon and Teyla share glances with Sheppard. Vala slipped her arm away from Sheppard's waist and leaned forward, chiming into the silent conversation.

Sam had the sinking feeling that they were about to pick a fight and only hoped that if push came to shove, she'd be able to gel with this team as well as her own. She hated to not have someone have her back in a fight.

The men in the tavern were still laughing and making derogatory comments, one trying to outdo the other.

"Girl like her would never--"

"Look at him--"

"I can give it to you much better--"

"Couldn't even get a girl if he paid--"

Sam's hands balled into fists under her elbows.

Suddenly, Sheppard took a step forward, sidled close to McKay, bumped his hip against McKay's and slipped a hand around his waist. Sam saw McKay go so stock-still it hurt her just looking at it.

"He doesn't have to pay," Sheppard drawled. He hooked his chin over McKay's shoulder from the side and said something that made Sam choke on her own saliva: "As a matter of fact, I'd kill him if he went sharing another bed."

McKay blanched, then developed red blotches on his cheeks. "_What_?"

A vicious coughing fit seized Sam and she missed all the other reactions to Sheppard's statement. She still coughed and her eyes watered when Teyla stepped forward as well. Teyla's eyes were hooded, her smile enigmatic and seductive as the Sphinx'. She trailed a hand first over McKay's, then over Sheppard's lips. "You mean to say _our_ bed, do you not?"

Sam saw McKay's lips moving against Teyla's fingers, saw Teyla pressing them down harder to quench McKay's protest. Sheppard played right along, nipping at Teyla's finger and giving her a low, sexy smile.

Sam wheezed and watched in an oxygen-deprived haze as Ronon appeared next to McKay as well, growling: "Learn to share, Sheppard," and yanked McKay close to him in something resembling a sideways bear-hug of sorts.

Teyla moved along, still standing in front of him while Ronon and Sheppard flanked him. McKay shot Sam panicked looks from eyes that had grown huge and muttered: "They've gone crazy, _help_ me!"

Sam just blinked, knowing her mouth was probably hanging open and not caring.

Vala gave the most brilliant grin Sam had ever seen on her and sidled up into the small gap that had formed between McKay and Sheppard. "Boys," she said, her voice taking on the quality of smoky whiskey, "play nice." To Sam's horror, she grabbed a handful of McKay's ass and gave a firm squeeze. McKay squeaked and shot Vala a horrified look. "Ow!"

Sam's gaze was glued to the stretch of the BDU material over McKay's behind for a few seconds, and Vala's pale hand on it. "Enough here for everyone, I keep telling you. He knows how to keep us all satisfied." Vala's hips moved suggestively against McKay's. When Sam shook herself out of her stupor, McKay had jumped clear into Teyla, was trying to avoid being pushed against her chest and in turn moved back against Vala and straight into her chest. The look he threw Sam over Teyla's head was almost comically desperate. "Lunatics," he mouthed, eyes huge, a deer caught in headlights. "I'm surrounded by lunatics."

"Aw, Rodney, come on. You know you love it. You don't have to play coy just because there are others around," Sheppard crooned. Then Sheppard jumped as well, and Sam didn't need to see what Vala had done to know.

It took Sam a full minute to get her facial muscles under control again and glare at the suddenly very quiet crowd, finally understanding where Sheppard was going with this charade: Easier to get out this way than to start a fight. Creative thinking, she had to hand him that. "He's ours," she addressed the crowd that was leering by now. She figured that it would be a good idea to confirm the ruse and squeezed behind Vala to run her hands through McKay's hair. His scalp was damp and warm, his hair soft. Sam didn't look at McKay, afraid that his wide-eyed horror still hadn't faded.

"Any more questions?"

"Have you all gone insane?" McKay murmured, looking as though he was talking to complete lunatics. Not too far off, Sam had to admit. Sheppard covered the sotto voce question with a cough, making sure no one but them heard McKay's words.

The silence was only broken by the clinking of bottles and tankards, by clearing of throats and embarrassed coughs.

Sam stilled her hand on McKay's head and snapped her gaze at Vala in a glare. Vala removed her hand from Sam's ass with a gleeful shrug.

The guy who'd tried to feel her up took a deep swig from the tankard he'd gotten, then put his hands on his hips. He didn't look remotely drunk and there was something unpleasant flickering over his face, something that made Sam uneasy and which had nothing to do with the obvious wish to pick a fight. "I don't buy it," he said, voice rough with animosity. "Him and her, sure." He pointed at Sheppard and Vala. "You and you," indicating Ronon and Teyla now, "too." He lifted his chin in Rodney's direction and his eyes gleamed triumphantly. "All of you with him?" He gave a snort. "Not until I've seen it."

He leered at Sam and winked at her in a way that made her skin crawl. Dirty fingernails, bad teeth, greasy hair and eyes that hinted at cold steel hidden underneath.

They should leave. They had no reason to rise to this stupid challenge. The guy was a bar-fly, for heaven's sake, they didn't need to justify themselves. On the other hand she knew just as well that if they'd try to leave now, one of they guys would surely pick a fight, and then they'd lose much more time than they had, according to Teyla. Plus, coming back to the negotiation with the news of having been in a fight wasn't helpful at all. But one look at the others showed her that this had morphed into a team thing already. There was no logic behind their actions anymore, just the wolf-pack standing up for one of their own.

After what had happened before, Sam knew she shouldn't have been surprised. But when Ronon rolled his eyes and yanked McKay to him, dipped the shell-shocked McKay and planted a kiss squarely on his lips, Sam wondered for a moment of she had stepped into the twilight zone.

The sudden silence would have made it possible to hear an insect cough. Ronon hauled McKay up again, spun him and pushed him into Teyla.

Sam blinked. Her hand, the one that had been on McKay's head before Ronon had charged, hung limp at her side.

Teyla reached up and put a hand on McKay's cheek.

This wasn't happening, was it? Surely this was a hallucination? Had McKay transferred one of his weird fantasies onto her? She pinched her thigh, felt pain shooting up her leg. Real, then. Sam blinked again. Saw Vala's delighted grin. Felt the other woman _bounce_ next to her.

When Sam looked back to Teyla, she was leaning up, urging McKay closer with the hand on his cheek. McKay's eyes flickered for a moment, unsure, then he closed his eyes and leaned in as well. Their lips met, sweet and tender. There was an obvious ease with each other's body visible in the kiss, the way Teyla breathed in and wrapped both hands around McKay's shoulders. Sam felt her face flush and something tugged at her heart over the evident affection in that kiss. It didn't look like something new. McKay and Teyla looked as though they'd been made for this, slow and sure and unhurried. It should have been a joke, just like Ronon's, but it wasn't. Sam was too amazed to do the polite thing and look away.

Teyla ended the kiss as gently as she started it. Before anyone could say anything, Vala was there, rubbing her hands together and smiling a blinding smile at McKay: "My turn!"

***

McKay was so flabbergasted it was downright cute. Vala felt the utter delight about how the team rallied to defend McKay - McKay, not Sam - fill her every cell, ready to burst out any time now. Daniel would have been much too uptight to do anything like this. Even Cameron, though to a lesser degree. But even if he'd started it, he'd never gone through with it. Sam was still looking so shocked that Vala didn't think she'd go along were the situation to come up on her team. So conservative, all of them, so different from this Pegasus galaxy team. Finally someone who knew how to be a little more relaxed and have fun. Though ... Teal'c, she mused. Teal'c she could see running with the situation. That stoic facade hid a wicked sense of humour.

But now, McKay ... Vala slid in front of him, tugged on the lapels of his jacket and pulled him close. The whites of his eyes were showing above the iris. "Hello, loverboy," she husked with a grin. She trailed her hands up his chest to the back of his neck. His eyes flickered - hectic, fast, almost hunted. She wasn't a member of his team, so maybe, maybe she could understand the reaction a little. But that made this all the more fun.

She took a step closer still, let their bodies touch, her breasts against his chest and his belly against her hips. His breath hitched. She almost felt sorry for him. But not sorry enough to stop.

Vala brought her lips close to his, looked into his eyes again - a nice blue, really, and those lashes could make a girl jealous. She winked. "Let's play."

Vala dove in. She'd seen him use some sort of lip-balm before while he and Sam were working together, and hm, this was nice. His lips were soft. Immobile under hers and really, she couldn't have that. She slid her hands over his back - nice and broad, good to touch - down to his ass and pinched one well-rounded, extremely pinch-able cheek. Grinned when he gave a startled squeak.

"Don't you know how to have _fun_?" She nipped at his lips, shifted her hips against his. "Don't be so _tedious_," she murmured with a pout.

His eyes flashed at the challenge. Ah, men. Vala's grin grew even wider. So predictable. She loved that about them. And McKay, she was sure, hid ...

Oh. _Hello_.

Now this was unexpected. McKay shook his stupefaction and claimed her lips, all intense focus and little, teasing licks that made her clutch his shoulders tighter. The sounds of the tavern vanished and Vala felt such a thrill over this entire situation bubble up inside of her that she wanted nothing but for this to continue. She nudged her hips against his and opened her lips - and invitation he followed immediately. His hands came to rest on her hips, pulling her even closer with nicely muscled arms - not too hard, not too soft, just _right_. Their tongues met, a delectable duel that made the blood rush in her ears and her toes curl. He was really getting into this now and his hands migrated to her ass, lifted her up and pulled her more snug against him. She couldn't help the smile that spread over her face even in mid-kiss, felt it travel through her whole body, the sheer joy over this situation and those people ready to burst out of her every pore.

When they finally parted for air, Vala threw her head back and gave a resounding whoop.

McKay looked a bit dazed, but soon shared her grin. She saw his gaze flicker over to Sam. Her mouth was all but hanging open in amazement and Vala decided to play on for a bit. She petted McKay's cheek. "Poor Sam doesn't know what she's missing," she said in a stage whisper - quiet enough so that no one of the bar-flies could hear it, but loud enough for Sam to understand.

Sam's eyes narrowed and McKay's grin turned smug.

Until Sheppard stepped forward.

Sheppard was relaxed, his head just tipped to the side, a smile seeming to slip free despite himself, as he looked at McKay. He glanced at Teyla and Ronon and the pride in his gaze couldn't be hidden. Vala definitely meant to do a little comparison kissing and compare that mouth to McKay's remarkably talented one. The smile turned into a full-fledged grin as McKay's expression morphed into alarm and suspicion. "Have you been holding out on me, Rodney?" Sheppard drawled.

The tavern was quiet again. The tension in the room was so thick it could almost be cut with knives. This was different from what Ronon had done. McKay had too much time to think this way. His chin came up. "Why don't you find out?"

It felt as though several minutes passed until Sheppard finally moved. Cradled McKay's face in both hands, so gentle it tugged at Vala's heart.

McKay whispered something that - even standing as close to them as she did - she had to strain her ears to understand: "My god, you are drunk, aren't you?"

Sheppard's eyes crinkled at the sides and he moved in one slow, fluid motion. He touched his lips to McKay's - no heat, no awkwardness, just gentle, affectionate pressure. The kiss lingered. Neither man moved. Sheppard's lips looked as soft as McKay's had felt and Vala wanted to melt on the spot. Out of the corner of her eyes, she saw Teyla and Ronon share a warm smile.

When they parted, McKay bowed his head. Sheppard did the same and their foreheads met in a gesture that's foreign to Vala, but which she liked immediately. Connection, affection.

"Not drunk," she heard Sheppard murmur. "I've had to do worse things in my life than kiss a friend."

The smile that curled up McKay's mouth was as brilliant as a supernova. It transformed him into a very attractive man.

"Me too, but just so you know, Colonel, you don't get a toaster."

Sheppard butted his forehead against McKay's playfully. "Still straight here, too, buddy."

Another bit of incomprehensible Taur'i cultural reference, but Vala thought she had it figured out. Straight meant she _would_ be getting into the good Colonel's pants.

That settled it. Vala turned to Sam. "Look, Colonel, you know I adore you and Cameron and Teal'c and even Daniel, but those four," she encompassed the Atlantis team with a sweeping gesture, " are so much more _fun_." She turned her best innocent look at Sam. "You wouldn't mind if I stayed with them, would you?"

Sheppard and McKay shared one of those glances that contained entire conversations, then they both looked to Teyla and Ronon. Up went Teyla's eyebrow, while Ronon shrugged.

***

Sam felt a lot like rubbing her eyes, pinching herself and looking for the moment when the hidden camera team would be jumping out from behind the tavern door, declaring: "Punked!"

It didn't happen. The air moved sluggishly, stirred by an old, blackened ceiling fan and the slow murmuring of the tavern's guests began to amp up again. Sam realised that most of the guys had turned back toward their tankards after Sheppard had kissed McKay, apparently satisfied that they hadn't chickened out, even if they didn't necessarily believe it. Only the blond guy who'd tried to feel her up still stared, waiting, something lurking in his stance.

The SGA team were talking amongst themselves now, the ruse of being oblivious to their surroundings and not caring perfectly in place, sharing laughs and a few insults. Sam stood behind them, having drifted to the background during the earlier action. No one, not even the bar-flies really cared about the original insult about McKay and her anymore, it seemed. Sam didn't know whether she should be offended or glad, and she didn't like the way her inner scales dipped toward being offended. She had no interest in kissing McKay. None whatsoever. And if the kiss he and Vala had shared had sent the blood rushing to her face, well, that was a normal reaction, right?

Deny, deny, deny, Carter.

Sam pressed her fingernails against the base of her thumb, one after the other, distracting herself. She wasn't interested. She wasn't disappointed. _She wasn't_. This was McKay, for heaven's sake. It was just that she hadn't been needed for the ruse, and she hated not feeling part of the team.

"Feeling a little left out of the team action there, Colonel?" Vala asked conversationally, leaning her chin on Sam's shoulder.

Sam shrugged, moving away from Vala. "It's not my team. I'm just a scientific supervisor."

Vala's brows drew together for a moment, then a slow smile crept over her face. She patted Sam's cheek in a gesture she'd last felt from her grandmother and which felt wildly inappropriate. "Go on telling yourself that." She withdrew her hand, walked around Sam to step up next to Sheppard, but stopped behind her again, whispering in her ear, husky and teasing: "He's really good, you know?"

"Vala!" Sam couldn't help but explode now. She'd had enough of the teasing and meddling for one day.

Her sharp, snapped out word made the team as well as the bar-fly turn toward her. The greasy guy had an ugly gleam in his eyes, as though plotting something nasty again. Sheppard frowned. Teyla looked mildly curious. Ronon eyed her with thinly veiled amusement. And McKay ...

Sam didn't like the way his face lit up with something she couldn't really place.

"Looks like I was right after all," the bar-fly stated, grinning.

McKay looked unbearably smug when he answered: "Oh, no. I was just taking a break. Saving the first wife for last. Making a harem like this happy is exhausting."

Sam saw Sheppard bite his lower lip and his hand twitch at McKay's words. Vala took care of the twitch by catching his hand and lacing her fingers with his.

"Harem?" Sam mouthed at McKay.

He nodded with a bright grin.

She snorted. "In your dreams, McKay."

"One of them is always feisty," McKay said, turning toward the bar-fly. "It's what I like about them." He took a step closer to Sam and set a hand on her hip.

She glared at it, but smiled at him, hissing through her teeth: "If you know what's good for you, McKay, you stop this little game right now. I'm willing to go through with whatever is needed to keep up this little charade, but I'm not playing your feisty harem girl."

The grin just grew wider. "But just imagine you in one of those gauze outfits..." His face grew dreamy and she hit him on the outside of his thigh, hard. He hid the wince well, she had to hand him that.

"You're despicable."

The hand on her hip tightened and he bent closer. "It's why you love me, isn't it?"

"It's why I'll kill you sooner or later," she sing-songed, a patently fake smile firmly in place.

"But if you kill me you won't know what you're missing," he sing-songed back, his head moving with the intonation.

"Please," she huffed, leaning back a fraction. "Like I care."

"Oh," he took a step closer, engulfing her in the scent of sunburned skin and the remnants of his aftershave. "I think you do."

Sam set a hand on his chest, stopping him from moving closer. "I really, really don't."

"Afraid you can't match the others?" He closed his free hand around hers on his chest, rubbing small circle on the back of her hand, all but branding it. Her hands were always cold. In comparison, his were white-hot.

Sam removed her hand, pulled it from his grasp. "This isn't a game, McKay."

"Oh yes," Vala's voice suddenly broke the conversation. "It really, really is. And a fun one, too."

"You," Sam glared at her. "Shut up."

Vala grinned and hooked her chin over Sheppard's shoulder again, settling in to watch.

"Everyone but you knows how to have fun," McKay teased, setting his other hand on her waist. "Even I do, apparently."

"You won't bait me," she replied, ignoring the way his hands felt on her hips, tightening and slackening again, warm, big.

He leaned closer, breathing deep. She could see every line around his eyes. "Do I smell an inferiority complex there, Colonel?"

Enough was enough. Bait, no bait, who cared anymore. He wasn't going to let it go, anyway, and she'd rather get out of this with her dignity intact.

"Feeling inadequate, maybe?" he continued, shifting from one leg to the other.

"In your dreams," Sam repeated. Then she reached up with both hands, framed his face and gave a sharp tug that sent their lips connecting with no gentleness or finesse. '_I'll show you inferior_,' she thought and turned her head a bit, making the angle better and then nipped at his lips, touched her tongue to the seam of his lips, demanding, aggressive. Her hands slid into his hair, clenching in the short brown strands. He opened up to her with little resistance and a guttural groan that sent tension spiralling in her belly. His hands on her hips tightened, moved up her back and down again, under the hem of her shirt at her waist and damn her if she still cared.

She was just about to end the kiss, slid her hands from his head, feeling her point was made, when McKay took over. His hands migrated from her hips to her face, cupping her head, thumbs stroking her cheeks. He pulled back for a moment, his eyes opening and staring straight into hers, pupils blown wide, breath fast.

"Let's try this again properly," he murmured against her lips and Sam wanted to kick his shin, push him away, but he was faster.

His lips touched hers, gently, so she could feel every bit the sun chapped today, the moistness that came from her earlier kiss. He breathed deep, never closing his eyes, breathing her in while his lips glided over hers, careful, teasing, gentle. His lashes brushed against her cheek while his thumbs pressed into her skin, bending her head back to make the angle better.

His tongue traced her lips in a repeat of what she'd done before, but it took him longer to coax her to open up to him, took him stepping closer and moving them against the bar, pressing into her body. The pockets of his vest were pushing against her by now oversensitised breasts. Her inner muscles clenched at the added stimulation. She kept staring at him, daring him, but his eyes, though open, were unfocused now, lost in sensation. She felt the beginnings of his erection press against her thigh and pushed her hips against him on a whim she didn't want to analyse.

McKay's tongue slipped past her lips, slick and hot and she could watch him the entire time, watch how his eyes slipped closed when he began licking his way into her mouth, along her palate, touching her tongue with his in fleeting seconds, gone too soon to satisfy, then finally began sucking on her tongue, stripping her senses and getting lost in the sensation. She had to clutch at his shoulders at this point, felt her own eyes sliding shut as her body went on auto pilot and her mind shut out place and time, just went with the gratuitous physicality she hadn't felt in too long.

A wolf-whistle brought her back into the here and now and she let her hands move from his shoulders to his chest to push against him.

They were both breathless and out of words for a few moments as they listened to Vala whooping and asking the bar-fly for a round, since they had obviously won.

Sam bit her lower lip, tasting McKay and released it again when she felt him watching. She looked to the side, where Ronon, Teyla, Sheppard and Vala were standing, smirking. Looked back to McKay who was looking more dazed than he had when Teyla and Vala had kissed him and felt a niggling of pride well up inside her.

"Don't let it get to your head, McKay," Sam murmured as she turned to the bar to accept a tankard. Her face was burning and she didn't need to see his smug expression now to know it was there.

If she was really hearing Sheppard sing "Baby you're the best" in a bad rendition of the tune to an old Bond movie und his breath, she ignored it.

She took a small swig from the tankard, not worried about the alcohol since for her, the mission was as good as over and she knew her limits and how to fake drinking.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched the bar-fly. He was still watching them, seemingly trying to gauge whether or not to keep needling them or not. He shot her a lewd smile. Sam curled her lip in disgust, but bit her tongue. No need to wind him up again.

Sam listened to Sheppard relaying the story of the fight on the marketplace with Vala helpfully supplying the juicier details. At the mention of the frying pan and Vala's rendition of the sound it had made when hitting the skull of the Genii, she laughed out loud, almost choking on her ale. Through her choking, she saw movement to the side and stiffened.

The bar-fly, whom she had considered to be one of the Alniyat, despite his hair colour, had pulled something that looked a lot like a communication device from under his kaftan and was speaking to it intently.

Something about that wasn't right. Sam reached out for Sheppard's arm, alerting him of what was happening behind his back. Sheppard turned, stiffened and then, in a blur of motion he was next to the bar-fly, his gun pointed at the guy's head.

"Found something to relay to your friends?" Sheppard asked silkily.

The man didn't seem worried at all. He lowered his comm – it really was one, Sam saw now – and a slow smile spread over his features. "It took you long enough, Colonel Sheppard."

Sam wrinkled her brow. Had she missed something here? She turned toward McKay, projecting the need for an explanation. McKay looked disgusted, pointed at the comm and spat: "Genii."

The man inclined his head. "I'm pleased to meet you, Doctor McKay."

"That's not mutual," McKay retorted.

Around them, the other men in the bar were rising from their chairs and stepping closer, mingled looks of curiosity and latent hostility on their faces. The stifling air and the smell of unwashed bodies so close by had claustrophobia creeping up in Sam.

"You don't really want to shoot me, Colonel, do you? It would make such an ugly scene if all those men came after you." He smiled at the men in the bar. "Not sure you could take them all."

Sheppard's gun didn't waver. Behind her, she felt Ronon's restless energy. "You'd be surprised," he rumbled, menace thick in his words.

"There is no need for hostility anymore. I simply meant to bid you farewell and thank you."

Sam narrowed her eyes. Ronon and McKay asked the question that was on her lips before she had the chance to: "For what?"

With the calm of an invulnerable man, he stepped away from the bar, Sheppard's gun following him, and made a flourish in their direction." For playing along so nicely and allowing my partners the chance to get the blueprints while Teyla Emmagen was distracted."

Sam's stomach dropped to her shoes. No. That wasn't ... A glance at Teyla revealed the other woman gripping the back of a bar chair so tight it had to hurt. Her jaw was set in a tight line. A muscle in her cheek twitched.

Ronon swept past her, gripped the Genii in one fluid motion and pushed him up against the bar with a resounding crack. "What have you done?" he hissed between clenched teeth.

The Genii still just grinned, even if he looked a little worried now, with his feet a couple of inches above the ground. "My partners only used the break in trading to get a chance to talk to the mayor one on one and convince him why we are the better trading partners. Since you were gullible enough to fall for me winding you up and didn't even think about going back to check if maybe you should be doing the same, I think we can safely say the better party won, yes?"

A thud as the Genii dropped back to his feet, then the flash of a knife in the dim light of the tavern - Ronon held a blade against the Genii's throat, snarling: "Give it to us."

Heavy boots shuffled over the dirty planks as the men in the tavern came closer, then, upon seeing the knife, dragged their feet back to their benches to sit down again. A brawl would have been okay, Sam guessed, but a knife in the hand of someone like Ronon and the gun in Sheppard's hand made the prospect of a fight suddenly a great deal less attractive.

Sheppard hesitated for longer than Sam liked. She could see him weighing the options of letting Ronon pressuring the Genii for information by force if necessary. It sent a shiver down her spine.

It was Teyla who stepped forward to stop Ronon. "Leave him," she said, tightly reigned in fury in her voice. "They will be long gone."

"Then at least we'll have him," Ronon spat.

"And what good does one Genii do us?"

Teyla had a point. Sam had no idea where the Genii had gone with the Gate malfunctioning because of the installation, but ... She stopped her thoughts dead in their track. They had stopped the interference caused by the energy storage, hadn't they? The Gate should be working again now the interference was no longer existing. Sam raised a hand to her temple to press her fingers against the headache starting there. They would be long gone. At least as long as it had taken the Genii Ronon was holding to distract them with his little game.

"Nothing," Vala commented from the background where she held on to McKay's arm with a death-grip and clamped a hand over his mouth. McKay was white with anger, struggling against her grip. Sam saw her leaning forward and whispering in his ear, watched him stop fighting her and stare at her in horror. Sam wrinkled her brow again. Odd. What had Vala said that could shock McKay more than the loss of the blueprints?

Sheppard lowered his gun, stepping up beside Vala and setting a hand to her bicep, curling around it lightly. "Let him go." Turning to Ronon, he said: "You, too."

Ronon didn't move, just pressed the blade more intently against the Genii's throat, baring his teeth. "Sheppard, we can't--"

"That's an order," Sheppard said, voice flat and commanding.

Ronon tensed, his whole body tightened and Sam could see him clenching his teeth to the point where her headache got worse just looking at him. He snarled at the Genii again, but eased the pressure of his knife, flicked it before his face a couple of times before pushing it back to the backside of his belt.

Teyla clasped her hand around his wrist, fingers pressing white against bone. Ronon breathed heavily, biting down the fury that was radiating off him in waves.

Sheppard looked at the Genii, inclined his head. "You won't win."

The Genii rubbed his throat, then grinned at Sheppard. "We'll see."

An answering grin flickered over Sheppard's face, one Sam didn't understand and couldn't analyse, but it was gone before she could think about it any longer.

"Let's go," Sheppard said. "I've had enough of the company."

***

Walking was a good way to release access adrenaline when she had no one to fight, Teyla had learned, but the way back to the jumper was not long enough to stop the anger and disappointment still boiling in her veins. They had met up with Harran again, who had looked sincerely apologetic, but he was a businessman and the Genii offer had been better. Of course, he had been grateful, all the Alniyat they had met had been, and they had received a very generous reward in food supplies, but still ... Before, when Teyla was still with her people, the food would have been all she cared about. Enough to get her people through an entire season. But now that she had been with John's people for three years, she valued technology differently, and she knew how much those blueprints had meant to Rodney, and how much they could have meant for Atlantis.

She dragged her feet, still unable to believe how much she had been fooled, and how foolish she had been to fall for such a ruse. How much her failure had cost them all.

Ronon fell into step with her, his larger body throwing a shadow on her. He nudged her shoulder, giving her a small half-smile. "Should have just shot them after all," he said.

Teyla glared at him for a moment, then answered the grim twinkle in his eyes. "Next time, we do it your way," she said with a smile.

Ronon straightened. "You hear that, Sheppard?"

John turned from where he was walking with Vala close to him and said to Rodney: "You catch that, too, McKay?"

Rodney grinned. "I did."

To her right, Carter appeared, bright hair gleaming in the waning evening sunlight. "Don't worry," Carter said to her. "They'll never let you live a moment of weakness down." She gave the three men a cursory once-over. "Ever."

Looking up at Carter, Teyla found her eyes tired but her face willing not to show the disappointment she must feel over the loss of the blueprints, too.

She was still putting together the words to take responsibility for her actions when they reached the jumper and stepped into the blessed cool interior. Teyla did not like the thought of another long journey before she could finally have a few moments to herself and before she could have a shower.

John slipped into the pilot's seat, pre-flighting the jumper while Ronon loaded the supplies from the Alniyat and Rodney and Colonel Carter lugged their equipment back on board. A broken laptop caught her attention and she listened to Rodney and Colonel Carter relaying the story of exactly how it got broken while she helped Ronon with the supplies.

"Ready, kids?" John called over his shoulder after a while. He looked rushed, somehow, and Teyla could not fathom why. They had no reason to hurry now that the mission had failed.

Vala dashed past her, threw the remaining bags of grain into the jumper with Ronon's help, then grabbed the other end of the last box with fruit Teyla was just lifting.

"Ready!" she called.

Teyla frowned. They were both very eager to leave Alniyat. She slumped on the padded bench, leaning her back against the cool metal with her eyes closed. She couldn't blame them.

The jumper moved softly, only the familiar growl showing her her it was in motion at all.

"For that thing in the tavern, you owe me a Powerbar."

"Fine," Rodney answered, distractedly.

"And a candy bar."

"You've got it."

"And all your French fries," Ronon added. "Forever."

Teyla opened one eye, saw Ronon and Rodney glaring at each other and closed her eyes again, shaking her head. She remembered the kissing and a small smile ghosted around her lips.

"So we really got nothing but the food?" Rodney asked suddenly, clearly trying to change the topic. "I mean, don't get me wrong, food is great, food is fantastic, but Sam and me just saved a planet." He gave a huff. "The work of geniuses should be more appreciated."

Teyla screwed her eyes tighter shut, not wishing to take part in this conversation. Her stomach had bottomed out when Rodney had began talking as it was.

Someone rose from his or her seat. Vala, Teyla deduced from the sound of leather boots on the jumper's floor. "Yes, Doctor. Too bad you've got nothing to play with now." The pout was audible in her voice. "You may have to go and play with people in the end."

"Vala," Carter's voice came, warning clear. "Knock it off."

"But it really is such a shame. It would have been quite useful to Atlantis and to Earth, and to think that you could have had it if only you'd let me steal it ..."

Teyla snapped her eyes open, her heart pumping fast, anger flooding her veins.

John swivelled in his chair. "Vala, drop the act."

She planted herself on his lap, wiggled. "Act?"

"Vala."

Vala got up again, rolling her eyes. "We need to work on that having fun thing some more."

She shimmied, reaching for the back of her pants, pulled out a small synthetic roll: "Do you think they'll be mad when they realise that this box they bought is empty?"

Teyla stared at the roll in Vala's hand, unable to speak.

"Is that--" Rodney began.

"Did you--" Carter said.

Teyla stared first at Vala, then at a grinning John, who looked smug beyond belief. She took a step closer, noticed how Vala stepped aside. The words came pouring out of her without her being able to do anything about it. "You knew?" she asked John.

He nodded, his grin growing wider.

"Could you not have _told_ me?" Teyla snapped, anger prickling along her scalp.

John's face fell a fraction. Behind her, she heard Rodney shuffling – at a safe distance – in Vala's direction, undoubtedly to get his hands on the blueprints. "They would have found out."

Teyla put her hands on her waist, glaring at John. "Are you telling me that I--"

John raised his hands defensively. "Not you. But Ronon."

An annoyed grunt came from behind her. "Hey!"

"Look, Teyla," John said, eyes downcast before looking up at her from under lowered lashes, "I'm sorry I left you in the dark like that." He quirked a small smile. "But you gotta admit it was a pretty damn cunning plan."

Teyla gaped for a moment, torn between being impressed and being, as John called it "really pissed off" then took the remaining step to close the gap between her and John. She came to a rest before him, bowed her head, her hands going to his shoulders.

He agreed in kind, his hands warm on her through the fabric of her tac-vest. Their foreheads met, lightly, but before John could move away, she moved her hands, clamped them around the back of his neck, moved her own head back and bumped her forehead against his, hard.

She moved away when he pressed a hand against his forehead. She ignored her own pain, shot him a feral grin. "Never again, you hear me?"

To her great satisfaction, John blanched a bit, then replied with a grin: "Okay, okay."

Behind them, Ronon roared with laughter, pulling Vala away from Rodney and giving her a bearhug.

The monitor flickering to life interrupted the commotion that had broken loose once then tension had broken. "I take it the mission was a success, then?" Elizabeth's face was smiling at them from the screen.

Rodney pushed to the foreground. "You could say that, in fact--"

"McKay, not now, you've got time to gloat later," Vala called, untangling herself from Ronon and dragging Rodney to stand next to Carter. "Our heroes!" she said to Elizabeth's image.

Letting go of Rodney and pulling at Ronon, dragging him toward Teyla, she continued: "More heroes!"

And finally, grabbing John and planting a big kiss on his cheek, bumping her hip with his while she slipped a hand around his waist and – Teyla saw from the shiver John gave – under his shirt: "And – ta-da – the evil geniuses."

"Vala, is that you?" Daniel Jackson's voice suddenly came loud and sharp over the comm.

Vala flinched. Carter grinned. On the screen, Jackson pushed Elizabeth to the side: "Do you have any idea how long we've been looking for--"

"Yes, thank you, Dr. Jackson, I think we can handle that later," Elizabeth said, a clear warning in her voice.

"But, Vala!" Jackson's voice took on a demanding tone.

Elizabeth turned back to the monitor once, murmuring: "Get back here before I spill blood."

The screen went black.

Vala straightened her pigtails. "Boys. Can never let them alone."

***

They glid through the stargate in Atlantis just when Sam saw Vala sneaking up into the cockpit and leaning over Sheppard, whispering something in his ear. He shivered but didn't flinch away from her, making Sam wonder exactly how much had happened back in that tavern while they were alone there.

Sheppard navigated the jumper into the bay smooth and easy. Sam had to hand it to him, she had watched greater men be distracted by Vala Mal Doran in full flirting mode. That he resisted, even just for as long as it took to park the jumper, was admirable.

Sam left to bring her equipment of the jumper again with McKay's help. She was tired and burned out suddenly, despite the success of the mission, wishing for nothing but a shower.

When she stepped back into the jumper, the lights had dimmed, and from the side, she could only barely glimpse Vala's long legs on either side of the pilot's chair. Sam's eyebrows climbed. That was one way of de-briefing. Though, she decided, they had earned it. And just because she wasn't getting any didn't mean that Vala shouldn't, too.

"Just as soon as we can get out the damned going away party Elizabeth insisted on throwing tonight," Sheppard told Vala in a low, husky tone of voice. Then he added, seriously, "Thanks for going along with us and Rodney."

Vala leaned closer still, fitting seamlessly against Sheppard, murmuring: "I'm just happy to find out not all Tau'ri are as boring and obsessed with the rules as Daniel."

Okay, that was quickly moving to the territory where she found out more than she wanted to know. With her last bag of equipment in hand and a laptop under her arm, Sam walked down the jumper's ramp in a haste. The laptop began to slide a little more with each step and she was just about to curse and fall into a crouch to keep it from slipping completely, when McKay's hand steadied her and caught the laptop.

"Enough to kill one. We don't have unlimited supply here."

Sam quirked a brow. "I could send you some new toys every once in a while, McKay."

"Only if you come along with them." He grinned, insolent.

Sam reached out her now free hand and whacked him across the back of his head.

McKay sent a beaming smile at Teyla. "That?" he pointed at his head. "That means she loves me." His grin widened. "Sheppard taught me."

Teyla's whole face lit up and she straightened a little, pressing a kiss against McKay's cheek, telling him something that sounded suspiciously like, "Good luck," before she left Sam with McKay at the foot of the ramp.

Sam turned for a second, looking back into the jumper just as McKay called: "Hey, Sheppard, are you--"

Sam reached for his arm, tugging him around. "I really don't think he can hear you now."

"What, why--" McKay halted. "Oh." He craned his neck. "Oh. Oh, that. Well, in that case ..." He walked up the ramp with his eyes tightly closed, calling: "Never mind, pretend I'm not there," hit a few control crystals near the jumper's hatch and sprinted back down the ramp just as the shield hid the jumper from view completely, leaving nothing but the jumper bay to the naked eye.

McKay gave her a grin and pointed to the way out with a small flourish.

They had barely left the jumper bay when Cam and Daniel came down the hall Sam and McKay had just stepped into.

"Have you seen Vala?"

"Or Sheppard?"

Sam looked at McKay with a raised eyebrow.

McKay shrugged. "I don't know." He looked Sam straight in the eyes, mirth twinkling. "Have you?"

***

"Elizabeth, honestly, I cannot begin to stress enough just now important--"

"It is that we find Vala, yes, Daniel, I know." Elizabeth clawed her fingernails into the bases of her thumbs as the rounded hall leading to the jumper bay.

"They were last seen here, they can't have gotten very far." Jackson looked around the jumper bay, frowning. "Wait, where's the --?"

"-- Jumper?" Mitchell finished as it shimmered back into view. The hatch dropped open.

"-- Colonel and Vala?" Jackson amended weakly.

Vala Mal Doran's laughter echoed from inside the jumper. She strolled down the hatch-ramp, a saucy grin lighting her face. She was tugging her shirt down while Elizabeth's eyebrows climbed upward on her forehead.

Mitchell's eyebrows went up as well when he asked Vala: "Didn't you have pigtails this morning?"

Vala fluffed her loose hair.

"She did," Jackson said.

Then John appeared behind her, looking almost too relaxed to stay upright and Elizabeth's eyebrows now met her hairline for good. His T-shirt was untucked and his hair messier than ever. He stood closer to Vala than was generally acceptable among strangers or North Americans. "Hey, guys," he said lazily, waving at Jackson and Mitchell.

Then he noticed her. "Elizabeth." At least he had the good grace to tuck at his rumpled shirt and look sheepish.

"Hey," Mitchell replied.

"Vala," Jackson said.

"Daniel," Vala replied, raising her eyebrows.

Jackson looked helplessly at Mitchell.

"Hey, don't look at me," Mitchell said.

Elizabeth raised her hands. "Both of you, don't look at _me_!"

"I'll leave you to this scintillating conversation then," Vala commented, sounding amused. She reached back and hooked a finger through Sheppard's belt loop. "Come along, Colonel."

Elizabeth quirked a smile, enjoying pulling Jackson's and Mitchell's leg. "Round two?"

"He does have a bed, doesn't he?" Vala asked.

"Oh, yeah," John answered

"_Vala! _" Jackson squeaked.

Vala ignored him and towed Sheppard away. Sheppard half turned as the transporter doors open. "Bye, guys." Turning to her, he nodded. "Elizabeth."

She decided that she really, really didn't want to know more.

"_Elizabeth! _"

Elizabeth Weir rolled her eyes, turned on her heel and walked out the jumper bay.

It never was a solution, but it was one today. There had to be alcohol. _Somewhere. _

Finis

**Author's Note:**

> Beta-read: By the invaluable enname, Auburn, and murron. Thank you!


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